Why blog?

I realize that I've been a sporadic blogger.  I promise that I'm not going to begin every blog post in which I haven't posted in over a week with this kind of apology, but I've been trying to figure out why I haven't felt the need to blog on a regular basis.  I was looking at the stats in my archive (right side bar) and in 2008 I was at the height of my blogging life--I was probably blogging at least twice if not 3 or 4 times a week.  And then things tapered off, with last year as the all-time record low of 34 posts--less than a post per week. 

So I have to ask myself--why blog?  Why do I keep this blog--and what do I want to do with it?

I suppose I've been thinking A LOT about blogging because for part of my new book chapter I've been reading a lot of blogs (part of it deals with blogging--not ready to talk in specific details about the book chapter yet, so I think I'll just leave it at that) and I've been remembering back to 2008 when I was blogging on a regular basis and I had this whole community of people leaving comments and probably folks who were lurking and linking back to my blog.  And I met so many amazing people--fellow bloggers like Tenured Radical and Tami from What Tami Said and the folks at Love Isn't Enough.

What was different in 2008?  I was on leave (technically I was on leave from Fall 2007-Spring 2008)  I was beginning my book manuscript (the same one that I'm still working on).  Which makes sense that in 2009 it dropped off as I was in the thick of teaching and writing.  And then BAM, April 2010 I get my cancer diagnosis.  So it, again, makes sense that 2010 and 2011 were not going to be big blogging years for me.

And now I find myself, 5 years from when I started this blog, on another year-long leave from the classroom--this time finishing the book project on racial ambiguity (back then I thought I was writing about passing).  I also find myself missing having a regular community of commenters and being a regular commenter of the blogs that I used to read on a daily basis.

I guess I've also been thinking about this because my friend "D" sent me this link from The Guardian about the need for more minority scholars who blog (click here) and I am, of course, reminded (as the article alludes to) about the whole AWFUL and RACIST blog post that happened on the Chronicle of Higher Ed and Tressie Mc's wonderfully astute and insightful and intelligent analysis and response to it (click here--out of full disclosure I should also say that I'm proud to call Tressie a friend and I knew her back before she was blogging so elegantly and eloquently)

What this all means is that I really hope to be blogging more regularly and to be reading blogs more regularly.  There are some mighty smart folk writing about race--and I want to be part of that community again.  Or perhaps more accurately, I want to be a more active participant in that community.  Here's to good intentions!

Bad 30's Housewife! Bad!

In my Sunday morning on-line news/blog reading, I came across this quiz on Tenured Radical's site:

The 1930's Marital Scale

You have to choose whether you will take the test as a "husband" or a "wife"--I decided to go true to gender and see what would have happened if I had found myself married in the 1930s. Here is my result:

20 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Yay!!!! The last thing a feminist in the year 2008 wants to learn is that she would make a superior 1930s housewife!

P.S. I just decided to re-take the test as a "husband" and the result is:

95 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Hmmmm...makes you wonder...

What do YOU excel in?

I'm doing home improvements this week, which includes some semi-major painting and home repair projects. Like re-porcelain-ing (is that a word? I just made it a word) a bathroom tub, and in this same bathroom, getting rid of all the horribly gross faucet knobs (circa 1960) with something more modern/clean, as well as a bunch of painting projects.

I am CLUELESS and HELPLESS when it comes to these kinds of things. I didn't even KNOW that the little "H" and "C" symbols on the knobs popped right off so that you could get to the screw that allowed you to unscrew said knob from the faucet fixture. This is where my boyfriend, whom I'll call "Southern Man" was useful. I wouldn't call Southern Man uber-handy, but he definitely knows MUCH MORE than I do about things in your home, and more importantly, he has a confidence about these things--he just believes that we can go to a hardware store, buy things we need, and figure it all out. In fact, when we went to one of the mega-home stores yesterday to buy our home improvement materials (our 3rd trip in 3 days of doing these projects), I was in despair of finding the right knob fixture (because the day before we bought ones that had circle openings when we needed square openings--I mean WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT TO LOOK!) Southern Man said:

"You're a smart woman--you've got a PhD, this is a piece of cake."

To which I replied: "Having a PhD does NOT mean you can screw in a lightbulb--in fact, most PhDs I know are NOT handy folks and are CLUELESS when it comes to home improvement."

[My apologies to those academics out there who know how to re-wire your house or install toilets, like my friend Dr. A who actually DID remodel his entire house, including a fair amount of the wiring]

What is my point?

I do not excel in home repair. I probably feel like some of my students when they encounter Teresa Cha's Dictee or some dense literary theory. My head hurts, my eyes swim, and my brain starts to feel like it's going to explode.

However, my friend in the blogosphere, "The Constructivist," whose blog "Citizen of Somewhere Else" is one I greatly admire, especially when he comes up with such smart lesson plans that have his students do blog entries about difficult texts like Cha's Dictee, has very graciously given me (and three other bloggers) an award:


[I blush, I stammer, I thank "The Constructivist" profusely!]

And so, as charged to me in this "E is for Excellent blogging" meme, I am going to name four blogs that I believe excel in the blogosphere. It was a tough choice, and one of the things I decided to do was to concentrate on blogs that I don't think get wide national attention (in other words, I'm not listing The Huffington Post). So, without further ado in alphabetical order:

*Land of the Not So Calm. Because Sang-shil shares her perspective with the world about transracial/transnational adoption in such a poignant, thoughtful, introspective manner. I not only learn from her posts, I *feel* from them too. Also, make sure you check out her post on the California same-sex marriage ban being overturned--she's got a great video by Vienna Teng with lyrics included.

*Poplicks. Junichi Semitsu and Oliver Wang provide smart, thoughtful, and ironic/humorous commentary on American culture and current events. You laugh AND you think when you read these guys. In particular, I was moved by Wang's thoughtful musings about reporting on disaster situations, like the recent earthquake in Sichuan, China.

*Tenured Radical. I aspire to both being tenured (3 years and counting on the clock--I begin my 4th year this fall) and radical, although I suppose radical is in the eye of the beholder since I'm sure many would find my stances on same-sex marriage, race, and gender to be radical, whereas I see them as simply logical/progressive. Tenured Radical is a sly and wily blogger--her posts are razor sharp and on point. They are rich not only in analysis but in provocation, which is what a tenured radical should do. For example, see this recent entry about Obama.

And last but certainly not least,

*What Tami Said. What can I say about Tami? Her blog is like my morning cup of coffee--I feel I haven't properly started my day if I don't read her latest post. Her writing is keen, sharp, and intelligent. I often find myself reading her posts and nodding along and saying to myself (or sometimes aloud to my dog) "YES! That's exactly what I think too!" Make sure you read her post on gentrification. One of the things I appreciate most about What Tami Said is that she never settles for easy solutions--she always pushes herself, and her readers, to think about matters in the complexity that complicated situations deserve/need/warrant. She struggles with issues, just as I do, just as we all do.

So there you have it. Four excellent blogs to kickstart your Monday (five including The Constructivist's "Citizen of Somewhere Else").

And if you have any tips about painting crown molding (or any other home improvement advice), I'm all ears!

Why do I teach and why does it matter?

Late last night, before turning in, I discovered that I had been "tagged" by Tenured Radical and The Constructivist to respond to the following meme that originated on Free Exchange on Campus, which was in turn inspired by Dr. Crazy's early January post "Why Teach Literature."

(Is everyone following so far? Many of the names I mentioned are links to the blogs and a definition of a meme for anyone who doesn't know what it is -- I had to google it for a precise definition).

I have to admit that when I found out that I was tagged not once but twice, and after reading the very impressive, inspiring, and articulate answers to this question, I felt (and still feel) a bit daunted. But I'm a teacher--let me rise to the challenge--so here goes:

WHY I TEACH _________________ & WHY IT MATTERS

I think the first thing I want to start with is

WHY I TEACH

I teach because I have to: it is my calling. Like any job or career, there is a material benefit to this particular profession, and I enjoy the fruits of my labor in terms of a paycheck. But I teach because I can't imagine operating in the world in any other way. It's not just a job--it's not just a career--it's not just a paycheck. I happen to teach literature. Well not "happen" -- that's a choice and there's a reason. But if I think about alternative career choices, they all somehow end back in the classroom: teaching law, teaching cooking, teaching quilting. I feel I was meant to teach because I feel that through teaching I make a difference in the world. Yes, a grandiose claim, as is the claim that teaching is a calling for me rather than a profession (and I say I'm agnostic). But it's true. There you have it. The inner-cynic has gone to bed. I want to make a difference, a positive difference, in the lives of my students and my colleagues. I teach because I want to make my own life better and richer. There's a feeling in the classroom when you make a connection with students, it's magical--especially when they make a connection with something you've just said and they go further. I guest lectured today in a graduate seminar (on issues of cultural diversity in education) and it was so much fun! I love hearing the stories that students have to tell, and I love telling stories of my own (I don't mean personal stories, I mean that I have a pedagogical style that emphasizes narrative and discussion), and I especially love seeing how our stories meet-up, and how we produce knowledge together. Being a teacher is part performer, part critic, part analyst, and a few other things (at least for me). I don't really understand how I came to this understanding, that I was meant to teach, but I feel it in my gut. I am a teacher.

WHY I TEACH LITERATURE & WHY I TEACH ABOUT RACE/DIVERSITY/ANTI-OPPRESSION

I am breaking this up into 2 parts because why I teach literature is a bit different from why I teach on issues of race, diversity, and anti-oppression. I teach literature because I love stories. I have a passion for narrative, and I believe that stories matter. I've actually already written about this in the post "Why Stories Matter" so I won't repeat myself here. Part of it seems completely self-indulgent--who wouldn't love to teach contemporary fiction to students? My job is easy--contemporary fiction is "fun" to read. And sure I do the usual close reading/critical thinking/research writing skills, but we also talk about larger themes--looking at the connections, for example, between F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and the American dream and how that gets rearticulated over sixty years later in Chang-rae Lee's Aloft, where Long Island still continues to hold mythic sway on the American literary imagination (subdivisions and all). The skills for interpreting literature are skills for interpreting life. And perhaps even more importantly, stories let us imagine worlds beyond our own, not just to escape in (although there is pleasure in that) but to find hope and solace -- stories make us realize that we are not alone, that there are others, whether its the author creating the narrative or the characters populating that work, who just might feel the way we feel and think the way we think and live the way we live. Or perhaps these characters feel, think, and live differently from us, and that, too, gives us hope and solace for reimagining our own lives.

Why I teach on issues of race, diversity, and anti-oppression is perhaps what David Horowitz and crew are afraid of: that I have an agenda--that I am trying to "convert" my students--that I'm one of those politically correct, lefty-liberal, atheistic, vegetarian, tree-hugging, feminist, hippie, socialist, queer friendly type of professors who will oppress my students with my "revisionist" history of the world.

Well...maybe...although I eat my steak rare and am probably too consumer oriented to be considered a hippie. I have hugged a tree, a sequoia, but couldn't quite get my arms around it. All joking aside, let me clarify. I am not out to convert anyone. But I do believe in a basic principle: I want to work to end oppression. I believe that oppression is bad. And more specifically, I believe racism is bad. And when I teach a course on race in American culture or race in American literature, I am clear with my students that we will look at race, all races--white as well as "minority" (or my preferred term, people of color)--and we will think about the way "race" is discussed in these works of literature (or film or photographs or other forms of mass culture) and the effects of race on people's lives. And when I talk about racism I talk about white privilege. And I do this because I think there is a value to our society in ending oppression. And I have yet to find a student who didn't think racism was bad and who didn't want to end racism (the definition of racism and how to end it, that's a different story that I'll save for another day). I don't always do a good job--for example, I call myself queer friendly, but I don't know if my everyday practices are as in tune with ending gender and sexual oppression as they are with ending racial oppression. And certainly I hold my class and educational privilege quite casually and know that I take it for granted many a time. But I'm trying. And one of the ways I try is in the classroom with the courses I teach that address issues of race/racism (and other intertwined categories, because how can you talk about ending racism without ending sexism?).

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Because I want to make the world a better place. Yep, we're back there. It sounds corny. It IS corny. But it's also true. I hesitated writing about this because it sounds so idealistic and a bit utopian, but I'm a glass-half full kinda gal. And the truth is, we have a lot of work to do. The world can be a dark and despairing place. But I have to have faith. I have to believe in the world I want rather than the one I have. And if I'm a teacher then I have a responsibility to do something about making the world I want.

So now I'm going to tag the following blogs/bloggers: CN Le Asian American Sociologist, Gilesbot 9000, Lesboprof, Prone to Laughter, and Sara Speaking. You can find their blogs to the right under the heading "Blogs I Like" and you can click on their names for a sample of their blogs. I look forward to hearing from them formally (since my charge is to tag 5 "teachers" for this meme) but I'd also love to hear from any regular commenters or lurkers who teach--Why do you teach _______ & why does it matter, to you?