Historiann

Can I choose "none of the above?"

Howdy!  Hellsapoppin’ here.  While some of you in the East may be shoveling yet more snow today, we in the West have got more than a few stalls to muck out today, and a lot of fences to mend.  Here are some items for your delectation and consideration:

• National Politics:  What’s up with our Transformational President?  Well, not his approval numbers, that’s for sure.  Jonathan Last offers an analysis that says it’s the Clinton primary voters who jumped off the bandwagon first, and looks at the recent election results in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts from that perspective.  Michael Lind writes that the Republicans have nothin’–but that won’t stop them from winning because of Dem fecklessness, diffidence, and/or incompetence:  “Buyer’s remorse is what the voters should feel when they vote for a party that promises a bold reform agenda and then acts between elections as though it were a lobby for the financial industry. But wait — which party are we talking about here?”  Meanwhile–there are open rumblings about the incompetence of the Chicago bubble that appears to have been more effective at getting President Obama elected than they are at governing.  (H/t RealClearPolitics.)
• Local Politics:  Our new U.S. Senator, Michael “Never Won a Single Vote” Bennet is sinking like a stone against Republican front-runner Jane Norton, and even against Weld County D.A. Ken Buck.  (OK, so they’re only Rasmussen and DailyKos polls, but wev–that’s all we’ve got.)  Gee–who ever would have predicted that it might be a craptastic idea to crown this guy Senator?  Meanwhile, a guy who actually ran a few successful campaigns and won a lot of votes is now in the lead to replace Gov. Bill “The Family Guy” Ritter.  Go figure!  Historiann might be voting Republican for the first time in her life come November–unless Andrew Romanoff wins the D primary, and even then, I might vote Republican anyway.  Why should I reward bad behavior by all of the d00dly d00dz who think they run this state?  (Of course, we’ll have to see how Norton and Buck play their hands, too.)
• Literature:  Leonard Cassuto considers J.D. Salinger’s Bartleby-like retreat from literary celebrity, and predicts Continue Reading »

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Sock it to me!

You’re a busy professional looking to diversify your skill set and to secure another income stream.  (Or, that’s probably how you’d describe yourself in jargony self-important business resume language.)  So, “[i]n this time of job insecurity, the question may have occurred to you: Should you consider part-time teaching as a way to improve your finances and expand your career opportunities?“  After all, “[t]he need for part-time professors, known as adjuncts, is high right now. Education is one of the few areas of the economy that has been expanding, partly because so many of the unemployed are returning to school.”

Well, why not?  You’ve got something to offer.  “[b]ecoming a teacher can be rigorous and time-consuming,” but really–anyone can do it, especially if you’re aiming for post-secondary ed, where we’ll let anyone teach!   ”[A]t the college level, part-time teaching is a realistic option for some professionals. Postsecondary schools are often willing to be flexible about academic credentials in return for real-world expertise.”  But, “[y]ou may not want to pursue teaching part time, however, if your motivation is mainly financial. The pay for adjunct professors is usually low, and the work can be challenging. Still, the nonmonetary rewards that come with teaching can be substantial.” 

Since the job is so fun and rewarding, and anyone can do it, you won’t mind the low pay now, will you?  Think about the children!  Plus, anyone can do it.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to mix up a Harvey Wallbanger and warm up the TV set–Laugh-in is on tonight.  Continue Reading »

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J.D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye and a few short stories and novellas, died on Wednesday.  The eulogizing of the author, who was more famous for his Bartleby-like retreat into seclusion and literary non-production in New Hampshire, illustrates a problem that we’ve discussed here before about the gendering of literary fiction. 

Last night, All Things Considered did an extensive two-part obituary for Salinger, in which they interviewed American literature professor Andrew Delbanco to explain Salinger’s importance in American literary history.  Then in a more personal story, “What Salinger Means to Me,” Allan L’Etoile (a teacher at the all-male Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C.), and writers Shalom Auslander, Rick Moody, and Adam Gopnik all praised the unique voice of Catcher protagonist Holden Caufield, and place him alongside Huck Finn and Nick Carraway as a memorable voice in the American literary pantheon.  (Are you sensing a theme here?  For example, Eliza Harris and Ellen Olenska aren’t on that list.  Neither are Hester Prynne nor Daisy Miller, although they were imagined by male writers.)

I guess no women writers or scholars have any opinions whatsoever about Salinger’s work worth considering–not even the writer, Joyce Maynard, who was Salinger’s lover when she was eighteen years old and Salinger was in his 50s.  Continue Reading »

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Happy New Year, friends, cowgirls, and countrymen.  In a few hours, Historiann et famille are off on another jaunt to a nearby ski town–as you may remember, I don’t ski, so it’s a reading weekend for me.  I’m going to nix the digital communication and go all codex for the remainder of the weekend.  I’m deep into some good books (thanks, Homostorian Americanist and Monocle Man!) and want to enjoy some fiction before going back to my usual diet of extremely serious and self-important non-fiction.  So, I’ll direct you to some interesting bons mots and bibelots I found on the world-wide non peer-reviewed internets:

• 2009 ended with some sad news in Roxie’s World:  Roxie, the world’s longest-lived terminal veternary patient, died on Wednesday, December 30.  Fortunately, Mark Twain showed up for the wake to give her a proper sendoff–go read, if your computer keyboard is tearproof.  We are glad her final days were so prolonged and that her final exit was mercifully quick.  Much love as always to Moose and Goose, Roxie’s human companions and typists.  We’ll have a cup of kindness tonight in honor of Roxie’s happy life and good death thanks to their loving care (and that of their good friend, Geoffrey.)
• Tom at Romantoes was at the Modern Language Association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia this week, and he tells a story about his encounter with the real Philadelphia, Continue Reading »

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It’s Thanksgiving week, so I thought I would reprise my Thanksgiving foods posts from last year.  Just in case you haven’t finalized your menu, here’s a retrospective of Thanksgivings past (and in the far distant past):

• “Thanksgiving blogging, part I:  ‘this depends intirely on the goodness of your fire,’” how to cook the bird, with tips for both the modern and colonial cooks.
• “Thanksgiving blogging, part II:  ‘beat all smartly together,’” a retrospective on various pumpkin and other winter squash pies and puddings
• And finally, for the thoroughly modern palate, “Thanksgiving blogging, part III:  recipe open thread,” which includes my favorite stuffing/dressing recipe.  I think I’m going to give Indyanna’s Crunchy Pear and Celery Salad” and Susan’s “Three-P” (pumpkin, sweet potato, and peanut) soup a try this year.  For vegetarians, don’t miss Notorious Ph.D.’s “Butternut Squash Lasagne“–I’ve got to try that next month once we’ve eaten through the turkey leftovers.

All this semester, I’ve been meaning to do some food blogging based on my re-reading of M.F.K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf (1942), as a response to our current Great Depression, but frankly, I’ve been a little flummoxed.  (How to Cook a Wolf was written as a guide to surviving rationing and fuel shortages in the U.S. during World War II, but I thought it might contain some useful tips for economizing more generally.)  I must report reluctantly Continue Reading »

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Check this out, from Flavia at Ferule and Fescue:  Our intrepid young Shakespearean was teaching Trolius and Cressida one day last week, when

I heard the door open, slightly behind me, I didn’t look over. I was mid-sentence, and figured it was a student slipping in late.

Instead, a young man and young woman walked right into the center of the room and started performing part of the banquet scene from Romeo and Juliet.

We stopped abruptly. F()cking theatre kids, I thought. They must be advertising a production. A$$holes. But since I knew the scene, and they’d already started, I figured I’d let them finish–surely they were just going to do the shared sonnet, and would be done in another dozen lines.

But they got to the end, kissed, and kept going.  Continue Reading »

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Most days, I’m perfectly happy that we keep our TV in the basement out of the way, and that it only gets the bare minimum of cable channels (local broadcast stations plus, for some odd reason, MTV 2, CMT, and Oxygen. As if!) Yesterday and today, I’m really, super-especially happy not to have a TV with the complete cable package.

(I considered posting the video clip here, but I thought that would be abetting the exploitation of the child-named-after-a-raptor who made national news yesterday. If you’re curious, you can see the video at The Daily Beast.)

I don’t care if the “balloon boy” was a hoax or not–how can anyone not see that doing interview after interview with CNN, Larry King, and the Today show (to name just a few examples!) is maybe not what children are all about? Continue Reading »

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Well, I did.  Will the Nobel be Obama’s “Commander Codpiece” moment?

Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize furnishes yet more proof of the enduring fatuity of our times.  Most Americans–and many Europeans, apparently–who really should know better make political decisions based entirely on their feelings, not on objective reality.  Just as many Americans voted for George W. Bush in 2004 because they “felt” he would make them “safer,” so the Nobel for Obama has also been awarded not for concrete achievement but on the basis of the emotions he stirs in some:  “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.“  (Emphasis mine.)  Good Lord.

Can we eat Hope?  Will Hope cover your hospital bills?  Will Hope shut down Guantanamo Bay and end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Will some magical Hopey goodness halt the melting of the polar ice caps?  Huh?  How’s that working out for us so far?

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Here in Colorado, September is supposed to be a golden month:  warm sunny days, and cool nights with great “sleeping weather.”  And, truth be told, we’re pretty spoiled for sunshine all year ’round.  This week has been cool–or rather, cold and rainy (or even snowy!)  I even turned the heat on yesterday because the sun refused to heat my house for free, like it usually does, and everyone was walking around in their winter coats indoors.  (On principle, I have refused to fire up the furnace until Halloween.  Cold temperatures are good for the character and constitution, I think.)

So, this is how we sunlight deprived Coloradoans feel right about now–our bones are feeling soft and ricketty from the Vitamin-D deprivation: 

Thanks to LD for sending this on!

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Very scary stuff, kids–don’t let it happen to you!  Seriously, go read Timothy L. Wood’s dark tale about someone assigning him the authorship of a fairly stupid-sounding essay about Barack Obama that goes straight from zero to Godwin’s Law.  There was our innocent young Assistant Professor and expert in puritan studies last winter, thinking about anything but net-famousness as he plodded his way through marking final exams:

One deleted e-mail marked the beginning of my ordeal. It was finals week, just before Christmas break, when I received a strange message asking me to comment on some kind of online political essay that I had supposedly written. Since I’m not a blogger and make it a point to avoid the many rancorous political forums on the Internet, I immediately dismissed it as spam and hit delete.

But the notes kept coming, increasing in their fervor and frequency, until I could no longer deny it: I was receiving “fan mail.” Some writers called me courageous. Others hailed me as a visionary. A few suggested that I was predestined to play a pivotal role in the apocalyptic events foretold in the Book of Revelation. (Seriously.) Now, over the past 12 years I have published a scholarly book and eight journal articles on various historical topics, but I have to admit that through it all I never even attracted one groupie. So with my curiosity very much piqued, I began an online quest in search of the mysterious article.

I suppose it was inevitable that I was not going to like what I found. There, prominently displayed on a rather extreme Web site, was an essay (information about it can be found here) that likened President Obama to … Adolf Hitler. Underneath the title was the inscription “by Tim Wood.”

Awesome!  Imagine that our Professor Wood is both the duplicitous, Satanic husband and the innocent bride in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Young Goodman Brown.”  His own secret identity was so devious and so secret that even he didn’t even know about it!  Continue Reading »

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