b l o g o s

boo hoo

My graduate student who is studying in Ecuador this summer has apparently gone and caught herself a mean stomach bug. And so, perhaps in solidarity, I managed to catch one right here in Urbana. This means I spent the day in bed with ginger ale and saltines--just like when I was little. Except, that is, for the stacks of textbook pages I lugged in there with me, and the laptop that burned through three batteries while I hunted around for up-to-date examples.

Deadlines and stomach bugs. I think I found a new example for the section on metaphors.

[edited to add: if my editor or--more likely--my coauthor reads this, i'm just kidding about the last bit.]

so which is it?

At the end of today's dissertation defense, when the defender asked whether she should get in touch with the committee members about revisions, I responded by saying "I have conveyed my wishes to Peter."

Is this a sign that I have
a) been watching too much Buffy?
or
b) been doing too many dissertation defenses?

Hint: after I realized what I'd said, I added, "the Master."

Dear Midmodern Scholar,

Thank you for your eloquent comment on Angel. I am so glad to know that you got DSL up in no-man's land (heh), because I swear I was thinking of digging up your address to write--as in handwrite--you a letter. Who does that anymore? But then I realized I probably only had that address on my old computer, and I figured I'd wait until I had a big list of things I needed to extract from said computer.

In any event, now that you have DSL I can tell you the things I wanted tell you:
1. Thank you for dropping off the entire Buffyverse. We love her. I have looked through all the dvd covers to see how SMG's hair changes and to compute the number of weeks we can make them last without feeling deprived (answer: about 10). Also, does something happen to Willow? Wait, don't tell me. Seriously.
2. We started a compost.
3. Even though we miss you desperately, JM and I decided it's probably best that you are away for this textbook phase; otherwise I would ask you to elaborate proverbs and compose long meditative inquires into people, laws, and ipods. But soon that will all be over, and you will be back.

til soon,
debbie

get thee to this other blog, o ye who seek book advice.

I have had more than one conversation of late with more than one friend or colleague about contract-getting and whatnot for tenure-and-promotion getting. It's that time of year, you know, when we drag ourselves back to earnest work toward that stuff.

(You'll have to forgive me for my lack of attention to elegance here, I have already spent about eight hours today on the textbook revision, and my head feels like a saltblock.)

Anyway, lots of people have asked me about getting book contracts, deciding who to send proposals to, etc., and I have gone around with people about the whole advanced contract business--one lovely round in a faculty meeting, no less. And lo, Tenured Radical has posted a really straightforward, super helpful entry about the book-publication process that has subsequently attracted lots of good comments (Siva's are particularly good, as are Anthony Grafton's as usual). I laughed more than once at TR's example of what NOT to leave in the footnotes, and will no doubt repeat Susan Ware's analogy about what is NOT in an advanced contract.

Thanks, TR!

where there's a dissertation, there's a whippet, part 3 (of 3)

parts 1 and 2 .

progymnasmata: proverb

In continuing with the textbook revision, I am going through the progymnasmata (preliminary exercises). We have a few examples from John Milton, who was raised on these same exercises. I think one of the readers usefully pointed out that the more literary examples come off as a bit stuffy. And while I couldn't bring myself to dispense with Milton, in part because I find some of his stuff is wickedly funny, I decided to add some examples of my own. I'm up to 'proverb' (aka: 'maxim'), and the exercise here is to amplify a proverb--to take it apart and make arguments in its favor. The ancients give very specific advice for how to do this. As I mentioned, Milton's amplification of "In the morning rise up early" is a hoot. It includes phrases like "Can anything be baser than to snore far into the day, and to consecrate, as it were, the chief part of your life to death?" Indeed.

I decided to try my hand at this, and let me tell you, it wasn't easy: just settling on a proverb took me hours. But below is the result. I'm no Milton, but that's exactly the point.

My proverb: “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”

[PRAISE OF THE PROVERB/AUTHOR]
Thomas Jefferson penned this wise maxim in his “Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life,” which I believe is one of our country's first Top Ten lists. Jefferson is of course well known for his labors on liberty, and it’s certainly the case that his views on liberty and basic freedom likely informed his views on diligence that motivate this proverb. The virtue of this quotation is what remains unsaid, namely the direct ties to personal freedom. One must work to remain free, or else one risks becoming oppressed by worry resulting from work undone. As an example, once I hit upon this proverb as one to amplify, I nearly let the mere discovery stand as my work for the day. That’s right, I almost put off the amplification until tomorrow. And then deciding not to waste too much time musing over the irony of what I’d nearly done, I set to work expanding the proverb.

[PARAPHRASE AND EXPLANATION]

Jefferson, then, in listing this piece of advice at the very top of his observations on practical living, urges us to tend to business that needs to be tended to and not to defer it just because it’s easy to do so. Of course this maxim is not just appropriate to business matters, or matters of schooling, but personal matters as well, like that phone call to your grandmother, or an overdue lunch with a friend. The main question here is, why delay? Get things done in a timely manner. These days, people write entire books on how to get things done, and they are all expansions of Jefferson's pithy simpler rule-of-thumb.

[PROOF]

Pressing tasks really ought to be handled sooner rather than later, in part because you never know what other matters will arise tomorrow to prevent you from doing that which you deferred in the first place.

 [EXAMPLE]

Consider this scenario: in June of 1776, when a committee appointed by Continental Congress delegated to Jefferson the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence, what if Jefferson, feeling a little overwhelmed by the task, had convinced his friends Madison and Adams to join him at a pub instead? “Oh, I can get started tomorrow,” he might have assured them, “the vote for independence hasn’t even happened yet, anyway.” And then what if the next day Jefferson slept late and woke up with a terrible headache and finding himself unable to focus properly, decided to put off beginning the draft yet another day? Instead, Jefferson set right to work, completing a draft in plenty of time for his colleagues John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and the rest of the committee members to revise it and to present it to the Continental Congress in late June. Had Jefferson not followed his own advice, we might be celebrating Independence Day in mid-August, closer to Thanksgiving, or not at all.

[TESTIMONY]

I say not at all because as Martin Luther, another producer of a timely document, once said, “How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never.’" There's also the famous saying “procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.” And Jefferson’s colleague, Benjamin Franklin, to whom the above proverb is sometimes attributed (most likely because someone put off checking their sources) also said, “you may delay, but time will not.” Perhaps most compellingly, Martin Luther King Jr. makes good use of anti-deferral logic where civil rights are concerned. In "Letter from Birmingham Jail," he writes,

"For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Too true. This testimony confirms the liberty that undergirds Jefferson's proverb. 

 [EPILOGUE]

Now that I have completed this amplification, I will have the afternoon free. Perhaps I will discover something else that can be done today.

 

regimen without the regime

One of my favorite malapropisms is when people use the word "regime" when they mean "regimen." OK, it's not really a malapropism, because the two words are very closely  related. But regimen is the one that's supposed to mean "mode of living" or relate to diet and exercise or other sorts of daily habits. Regime more often refers to systems of rule or government. But it's true that certain regimens can feel like the most oppressive regimes, which is why I giggle when someone uses the word regime for regimen--I'm sure I've done it too.  Both do imply a kind of structure or rule (thanks to the shared root which means to rule or direct).

In the summer, structure is necessary for me, but I can't deal with oppression. So this is why, without the structure of teaching, I tend to follow a regimen that doesn't feel like a regime.

It is of course a regimen that will get interrupted every four or five weeks for little trips we've planned--but still, having it in place makes for ease of resumption. This summer the regimen goes like this: up at 6 or 7, immediately get to work on the textbook.

Work on textbook revisions until 11:30 or noon (or if I'm particularly productive, take a blogging break like right now), and then make lunch.

Lunch marks a transition to Other Work. (OW for short) OW, right now, consists of dissertation number three, and when I finish that, the first review essay for my stint as QJS book review editor (hooray for writers who deliver!), and then after that a book manuscript that I've agreed to read for a press. Those ought to keep me busy til late June, at which point we will be done with the textbook (fingers crossed), and my book will take the place of the textbook even as more OW moves in (for example, work by graduate students who are--ahem!--toiling under their own regimens). OW, it should be said, is sometimes not as painful as it sounds and can be downright enjoyable.

OW lasts one to three hours, and is preceded or followed--depending on the day--by a workout of some sort. Yesterday was yoga, and today JM and I are hitting the track. 

Late afternoon is devoted to miscellany--grocery store, library (today), a meeting here or there, blogging, yakking on the phone, playing with the dogs, what have you. Then it's time to start thinking about dinner.

And here's my favorite part of the new regimen. After dinner, JM and I settle in for two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Somehow I never EVER watched this show--not a single episode--but Midmodern Scholar dropped off an entire dvd set on her way to their summer place, and we are lov-ing it. We are only in season one, which aired in 1997. I am told it gets even better. By my calculations, we should be able to watch Buffy--are you ready?--all. summer. long. In this case, the word regime seems perfectly appropriate.

return, regroup, revise

After about 1,000 clutch-induced left calf crunches in the snarly 94 traffic, a happy, dancy, home-to-the-whippets celebration, a trek back through email to pick up the scheduling requests and pleas for help that came through while we were gone, a long phone convo with E for a vacay rehash and general chit chat, and a lovely backyard dinner featuring fish and salad we picked up at Whole Foods before leaving Chicago, it's time to get back to the textbook revision.

 

from the classified ads archives (circa 2002)

Announcing TRYOUTS for a new alternative rock band to be named ARCADE FIRE. Must be able to play 6-9 instruments including a healthy mix of wind, percussion, and strings. n.b.: "play" can include tossing and breaking, but only after you have established your sure range. Audition includes several rounds of instrument roulette. [Note: if you only play one instrument--e.g., violin--you had better tear that shit up.] We are looking for young people who are physically distinctive, especially from a distance, which means: a) great hair; b) a sharp jaw line; c) exquisite fashion sense (and preferably all of the above). Must be able to move nimbly around a crowded stage with a mess of cords and guitars and whatnot. Strong vocals required--how else will you be heard over all those goddamned instruments? Must generally appeal to the post-graduate crowd. Deep ambivalence toward the U.S. preferred. Between eight and twelve band members will be chosen. No recordings, please.

Devil's Lake State Park (WI)