Animation of me then, me now

This little video reminds me of myself now, and of myself “back then.” I’m not in any way as “established” as the older professor in this video (although I certainly do share my office)–and I’ve yet to come out this process PhD-certified–but just the utter sense of despair is totally real. You’ll teach in some crappy school in the middle of nowhere, to indifferent students, making less than peanuts for the rest of your life. You’ll publish in some obscure journal, nobody will care what you do or say, and you’ll probably die in adjunct hell because less than half of the jobs available to PhDs are tenure-track positions.

I’m not entirely sure about the argument in this video that you, as an academic, will constantly have to justify your position in a society full of Tea Party-like anti-intellectuals. I think that professors generally speaking do get some modicum of respect still. I am reluctant to claim that I’m being persecuted in my Ivory Tower, just as I am reluctant to admit that I suffer from discrimination since, as a fair-skinned person, I’ve reaped the benefits of White Privilege (even though I’m technically a female minority). But I understand the sentiment of feeling increasingly devalued in a society that devalues experts in so-called “useless” fields. I think the real battle is convincing people why teaching and learning about history is valuable to society, not why medieval history in particular needs to be taught. You can’t win one without the other.

Admittedly, I was not as stupid or naive “back then” as the student is portrayed in this video, but I think it very nicely captures, even though it exaggerates, the idealism most graduate students feel before entering graduate school. We’re gonna read books! Write history! Be brilliant and change the world! I think that idealism never quite goes away. If it had, we would have left the building a long time ago.

It takes quite a bit of time to get to the punchline, but the whole video is a sucker punch to the gut. The ending can be interpreted as wanting our students to continue our legacies and perpetuate our knowledge and research in spite of all the bureaucratic and economic challenges that are inherent to an academic profession, especially one that specializes in the humanities.

Insomnia

I don’t think I’ll ever get over not being nervous the day before teaching.

Here is what I’m teaching tomorrow, about which I know little:

I go back and forth on whether I enjoy teaching. It causes me a lot of anxiety, and it’s difficult to deal with students who don’t care about the class or don’t care for you, whether it be from indifference, close-mindedness, or both. But, once in a while, you get one or two students in class who love what you’re doing, what you’re saying, and then other times you get a good discussion going, and it’s really the best feeling in the world. You don’t want to be anywhere else. You want to be right there, out in front, eager to lead.

Pedagogy = pain.

Teenage Paparazzo

I wonder: If Adrian Grenier were in charge of Entourage, the show somehow could become a more reflective and socially biting commentary on the Hollywood “game.” Because right now that show is a steaming pile of shit even though the premise has (or, rather, had) a lot of potential. It’s a shame, really.

As for this documentary: this was a very good film; big props to director and actor Adrian Grenier. He not only tried to understand the world of the paparazzi, but also tried to bring a critical eye to the relationship between celebrity and fandom. His thesis is that people, especially young people, spend time consuming media almost as much as they spend time sleeping; as a result, parasocial relationships form with famous people. These relationships are defined by their one-sidedness and objectification of the famous subject. We think we know celebrities, read tabloids, look at pictures and images of their mundane lives, and discuss their lives in ways that reinforce our own personal and cultural values. It’s a film of many ideas. Adrian even steps back and adds a meta-narrative to the film by exploring the effects of fame on his teenage paparazzo subject (Austin), at one point becoming the paparazzo/stalker himself when Austin inherits newfound fame.

Ad misogyny

This is BEYOND disturbing. How much of a total douchebag sociopath do you have to be to come up with an ad that basically says “suits for men who hate women” ?

I feel that, as I’m getting older and more politically aware, I am becoming more sensitive to representations of women that “ironically” exploit female sexuality to bolster traditional images of male power. It’s tiresome, and even downright frightening when violence against women is glamorized to move male-oriented products.

Behold this gem for the video game “Hitman”:

Seriously?

First post!

Going to start this blogging thing. Here we go.