On Sweating

It is mostly very hot here in the south. In April it gets hot. In October it is still hot. But here now in July, boy: words cannot express. New York can get pretty miserable in the summer. But I do not recall it being this hot, this consistently. When I first moved here it was summer (two years ago) - the end of June. There wasn't a soul on the streets. I would walk around the neighborhood (sans sidewalks) and listen to all the a.c. units running and SUVs whizzing by. And I would sweat. Now I go for regular morning and evening walks with gas fils and I still sweat. That's just about all there is to do here in the summer; and there's no getting used to heat like this (at least not for me, reared in northern climes - Canada, practically). But we cannot sit inside all day. And despite the heat and overall lack of rain thus far this summer the neighborhood is remarkably green and pretty.

Even Gas Fils sweats. The little ends of his hairs on the back of his head start to lay flat against his neck, weighted down by the moisture. Given that sweating is one of my few occupations this summer (while mlle. gass-y is working all day), I thought I might start a list of occasions when I sweat and sort these occasions into categories: times when it is okay to sweat and times when it is not okay to sweat.

Times when it is okay to sweat:

• When I am doing yardwork. Sweating makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something even when I look down and see how much more I need to do.
• When I am jogging. Ditto.
• When I am about to jump into water.
• Sex (depending on partner)
• When I have a flu.
• When I'm dancing (after 2 a.m.).
• When for whatever reason I want to drink a beer in the middle of the afternoon.
• When I'm writing.

Times when it is not okay to sweat:

• When I am teaching. No matter how comfortable I feel with my class, no matter how cool the building is kept, no matter what: I sweat when I teach. Hence the dark clothing. It's not because I'm cool or wanna-be-cool. Dark clothes hide sweat.
• When I'm dancing (before 2 a.m.).
• After showering, with fresh work clothes on.
• When I'm getting a haircut. Bad enough under all the hair. But it's so embarassing when the cape comes off.
• When I'm in an interview.
• Dinner out.
• Sex (depending on partner).
• While reading the newspaper. Cheap paper, runny ink.
• When giving a conference paper. It's like teaching, except that I never get comfortable giving a conference paper.

There are many other occasions, I guess, pro-sweat and con-sweat. But these are the ones that come to mind at present. Now I have to set out on my mid-morning walk - before the temperature hits the 90s. I will still sweat, no doubt. But since nobody goes outside here and since nobody walks anywhere, nobody will be there to notice me sweating. It will almost be like I am not sweating. But will I feel a heightened sense of accomplishment?

The Sweaty-Man

One must [now] have a mind of summer / ...and have been hot a long time / To behold the [wisteria vines] shagged with [pollen dust] / ...and not to think / Of any misery in the sound of the [lack of] wind, / In the sound of [...] few leaves....

Damn. I was holding open my book of Stevens poems to recall these lines from "The Snow Man". But when I pulled away from the book my sweaty hand stuck to the page and ripped it clean out.

On Confidence

Sometimes I cannot write. By this I do not mean that sometimes I cannot write well (that would be often). What I mean is that sometimes I cannot write words. Maybe this is just what is called writer's block. But I've had that before and I usually think of that as involving a lack of ideas or beginnings, etc.: in other words, as not knowing what I want to say. But my not being able to write now (that is, lately) is not exactly that. I've got a lot to say, actually. I've got big ideas. For one thing I know exactly why the book I'm reviewing is good (and I have a pretty good idea about its flaws). But I'm not writing why it's good - even though the review is late. Also, I've got this great idea for a new article - something that connects the contemporary political situation with a figure / genre from my period of interest. At least I think I do. I haven't actually written it out yet. I'm part of an exciting panel at a conference later in the year. It's one of those big-question panels: a give us your thoughts on the discipline, the profession, the state of the world kind of thing. I even have a research assistant to help me collect the necessary data for the presentation. But while I have a great title for the talk (it has a colon and all) I have little else. I've never had a research assistant before and I'm not really sure what to tell him. I mostly try to avoid him. Fortunately, he gets paid with or without my directions. Then there's my tenure folder. I've given it a lot of thought and I'm pretty sure my institution should tenure me. I know how I meet the requirements of the criteria. But have I drafted my statement?

And then there is this blog. I started this on the recommendation of a friend. I thought it could be a place for me to write about more up-to-date things (my period is way in the past). But the horrible headlines pile up like the wreckage facing Paul Klee's Angel (and this is just the news that's actually reported. Progress?). So never-ceasing crappy news is a problem. Laziness is also a problem. Once I get so far behind I just freeze and wait for some new thing to raise my critical ire. But then it's as if I've ignored history. I no longer know what to say about the recent supreme court ruling on segration in schools, for example. Actually I do know but for whatever reason I didn't say it and now there are many great editorial pieces and blog posts that get right to the point. Unfortunately I haven't even linked them yet (I'm stull reading). And let's not forget the "bong-hits for-Jesus" kid. That was no field trip, Roberts, you fuck. I freeze. At any rate, I'm dead keen to write this blog-series on liberalism in the academy. I don't see the whole "all professors are leftists" argument we sometimes get from students or the press. I see something more akin to all professors are wishy-washy liberals who want students to think critically but still think the Democratic party is "progressive." I don't mean we should be teaching this stuff in our classes. Not necessarily. But I think it's odd that so many professors are culturally radical (postmodern transgression and all that shit) but politically as far from radical as can be (compare and contrast the NYTimes coverage of, say, the Tom Stoppard cycle and Hugo Chavez. I've got nothing agaist Stoppard (though drama is a dying, if not dead, medium) but boy do I love to see liberals frothing at the mouth over Chavez's land-redistribution schemes). So why am I writing this instead - on not writing?

I could just as well be doing the dishes or reading some book totally irrelevant to my field or weeding. These are all things I enjoy doing when I'm not writing. I think one consistent problem across the different writing registers that affect me at present (review, conference presentation, article, tenure report, blog) is confidence. I am at present lacking in confidence. If one of these things would actually come through (an article, a successful presentation, tenure, a blog reader)...well, that would give me confidence. Then I might be able to write. But I need to write first for one of these things to come through. Fuck.

I was asked by a journal to write a review of a book that was published as part of a series that includes my own book. I like this writer's previous book a lot and I like the new book too (though less). But for some reason I cannot say how or why, even though I know - or think I know - how and why. I have this sudden loss of confidence. They sent along a sample review for style, length, etc. That review is not very good, in fact. But it's better than the one I'm writing. At least that's how I see it. I have to see it differently. Not as "not very good" or "good" or whatever, but as "a review," which I too have to write. An article, which I too have to write. Tenure, which I too have to win. A blog, which, well. O.K. Next up (maybe): liberalism and the academy. Confidence makes for good writing. It makes for writing period. Words. To write confidently is to write better. Where does it come from, though?

...the 4th of July

The last few weeks / months / years / of headlines leading up to today's holiday celebration must surely by now speak for themselves. If not, there is a host of good commentary collected on news sites like commondreams.org, papers and magazines like the NYRB, the Nation, etc., and especially across the blog world. I offer in addition to all of this a thought - a reflection, really - by the essayist, translator, and critic, Walter Benjamin. The reflection comes from Benjamin's "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in which he critiques the liberal-progressive view of history (under which banner he includes a dominant strand of Marxism) that has proven impotent in the face of fascism. The "Theses" were completed in the spring of 1940, just before Benjamin took his own life rather than risk falling into the hands of fascists.

They have much to say to us still.

# VIII: The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are ‘still’ possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge—unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable.

...David Denby

I do not like the New Yorker film critic David Denby. At the same time, I can't stop reading him. When the latest issue of the magazine appears in my mailbox (usually a week later than it should!) I immediately look to see whether Denby or the magazine's other film critic, Anthony Lane (annoying for other reasons), is featured. If it's Lane I'll look to the other stories first and eventually find my way to the back pages to see what sort of cutsey turn of phrase the movie under review has inspired Lane to write. But if it's Denby writing, I have to see what he says right away. Even though I know it will make me mad.

I have mixed feelings about the New Yorker as a whole. On the one hand you have the still- great-after-all-these-years investigative reporting of Seymour Hersh. On the other you have the smug liberalism of writers like David Remnick, George Packer, and Denby. Remnick and Packer do the bigger stories: on war, say (which Packer was for, though now he's not), or politics, or profiles. They both write beautifully as I suppose one must when writing for the New Yorker. But where Hersh's dry, list-like style serves to keep his assumptions in the background (minus the assumption that governments are corrupt) - indeed, it is difficult to glean a solid political position or perspective from Hersh's writing: is he a Democrat, Republican, left or right-winger - the same cannot be said for Remnick or Packer. Their liberalist assumptions are precisely what is foregrounded in their writing: thoroughly Democrat-leaning, never will you find a statement or even a sense that there might be a perspective beyond or other than their own (even when Democrats are being criticized). The intolerant conservatism of the Bush administration is scoffed at regularly and often for good reason. But positions and perspectives to the left of the Democrats (which is to say, to the left period) do not even come in for scoffing. They don't come in for anything at all. Is it possible that free markets and privatization schemes might be a bad idea in some instances? Not to these guys.

And not to Denby either. Denby's writing is nowhere near as compelling as Packer's. And his intellectual rigor...well let's just say there isn't much of that in his approach to movies. Maybe there shouldn't be? Who is to say. But Denby shares with other writers at the magazine that smug sense of moral righteousness that cannot stand to see the vaunted principles of liberalism (some vaunted for good reason) questioned. Sometimes, in fact, Denby cannot even see that they are being questioned. Take for example his review of Michael Winterbottom's "The Road to Guantanamo". Like several other critics, Denby saw this film as being a straightforward piece of propaganda. For Denby, movies, maybe art generally, should not be biased (unless it is an implicit bias confirming Denby / the New Yorker's world view). I get the sense that popular culture (for Denby) is meant to bolster and perhaps better our national sense of self - not challenge it. But in his rush to condemn Winterbottom's film as pro-terrorist propaganda, Denby misses the major question posed by the film (a question that to my mind makes the film something other than "propaganda"). The film chronicles the experiences of three young men from Tipton, England, in Pakistan (where they go for a wedding in the weeks after 9/11) and Afghanistan (where they go, they say, to help the people, now under attack by American forces). The three are eventually caught by Northern Alliance troops and handed over to the Americans (who bring them to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba). At Guantanamo, the three men are accused of being members of Al Queda. A pre-9/11 videotape shows them (they are told) at a rally held by / for Osama bin Laden. They are subjected to all the torture, violence and depradation that have become synonymous with "America" for many in the world. And they are eventually released (they were actually in and out of prison back in the UK at the time of the rally in Pakistan). Statistics at the end of the movie (corroborated by Human Rights Watch) suggest their experiences were not unique. At the time of the movie only 10 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay had ever been charged with a crime (out of a possible 700 plus). Not one was convicted.

What Denby cannot get over is what these three men were doing in Afghanistan in the first place. What do they mean by "help out"? And why does everybody they are with have automatic weapons? The movie doesn't explain this. It highlights this awkward aspect of their account. What were they doing indeed? But here's what Denby misses in his fixation on this detail: does the eventual treatment of these three men become justifiable if they were in Afganistan to fight for and with the Taliban? That is, can we only condemn the systematic abuses at Guantanamo Bay (and elsewhere) if we can establish with absolute certainty that these men are innocent? This question is entirely lost in Denby's moralizing critique. And yet not only is it the point (should torture ever be justified), it is one of the most pressing moral questions of our age. As Zizek argued in the LRB a couple of years ago, once torture is even admitted to the table (for true enemies of the country), admitted to the discussion, we (the people) have already lost.

Simple propaganda. Hardly. Still over Denby's head? Seems like it to me.

I was hoping that Denby would get to review Winterbottom's newest film ("A Mighty Heart," about the slain journalist, Daniel Pearl). But it went to Lane.

Denby's latest piece is on Michael Moore's "Sicko" (more propaganda!). You can read it at http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2007/07/02/070702crci_cinema_denby/
I have not seen the movie yet so I cannot comment on it (I have mixed feelings about the Moore movies I have seen, but this is a subject for another post). For Denby, "Sicko" is Moore's worst movie yet. As with his review of "Road to Guantanamo," (and nearly every other review he's written), Denby says nothing about the craft of filmmaking: the setting up of shots, pacing, camera work, palette, etc. But boy is he mad about Moore's pranks! Bringing 9/11 workers to Guantanamo Bay and then to Cuba for care? How silly. Except that Denby doesn't get the joke (he is annoyed with the way Moore acts like he didn't already know that Cuba had universal health care; he expresses wonder and surprise). Nor does he (again) get the point. "In the actual political world," he writes, "the major Democratic Presidential candidates have already offered, or will soon offer, plans for reform". A few lines later he says that "Changes in political consciousness that Moore himself has helped produce have rendered his latest film almost superfluous". Does Denby know something the rest of us don't? Every Democratic candidate has offered or will offer a plan for health-care reform? He cannot be serious. Moore's argument is for a single-payer system that renders the health care industry itself superfluous. Are the Democrats offering such a system? Nothing even close. Democratic-party health care reform, if it is ever even pursued, will very likely follow recent reforms in medicaid, the EPA, and energy: that is, industry lobbyists themselves will write the legislation. That's the American way. Health-care companies know more about health care than public officials. It's their business, after all. No Democrat that I know of is challenging this basic principle. If you want confirmation look at campaign contributions.

There are already lots of high profile think-tank intellectuals at the Cato Institute and elsewhere writing to discredit the political and economic arguments of Moore's film. Fair enough. Let's have a debate where an end to the private health care industry is on the table. Denby's smug dismissal of Moore's arguments (and his ignorance about where the debate stands currently in the Democratic party) will add nothing to such a debate, however. And if you take away these dismissals there is little left in the review to qualify as content. Perhaps, then, it is Denby himself who is superfluous.

Except that people like me keep reading him.

...Waiting

There are certain kinds of waiting that afford no pleasure. To explain, I will borrow the speak of our infamous former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfield (who is hatable, certainly: the new Seymour Hersh piece on General Anthony Taguba, published in the New Yorker, provides a fresh, inside look at some by-now classic abuses of power): there are things we wait for which we know, things we wait for which we don't know, and things we don't know we're waiting for but wait nevertheless we do. The last category might include love, death, STDs, or the late-night arrival of Republican brownshirts at your door. I don't have much to say about this category. The things we wait for which we know a.) are coming, and b.) are good, also require little commentary (Christmas presents, say, or spring break). It is almost always pleasurable to wait for such things (the whole Keatsian "for ever panting, for ever young" syndrome) - even while one hates to wait. Those things we know are coming but which are lileky to be bad or painful (e.g. the dentist, the end of spring break) are far less pleasurable, obviously, but they can still occasion some pleasure: the pleasure of still being in the dentist's waiting room, say - that is, with no drill bits in your teeth.

But waiting for those things of which we have no real sense of the outcome is the worst. And it is this particular kind of waiting that many academic fields offer in abundance. Abstracts for conferences, presentations, fellowship applications, job letters, article submissions, book proposals, tenure-review files, hot peppers on ratemyprofessor...all of these offer little if any pleasure in waiting. You might be waiting for acceptance, legitimacy, income, leave time, the esteem of your colleagues and peers, or chili peppers. But you might just as easily be waiting for rejection, humiliation, continued unemployment, or the feeling that you've wasted an enormous block of precious time. You cannot, in other words, take pleasure in saying "oh when do I get to get that fellowship" unless you are factoring in the years of your entire career and the inevitable multiple proposals you will have to come up with and write before you get THAT fellowship.

I applied for an NEH faculty grant this year. It already seems like a long time ago (April) when I submitted the application package via an online submission system that actually felt less convenient than printing five copies and mailing each the old fashioned way. The only thing that might be positive about the NEH system is the huge lag time between submission and announcements. I find out in December. By then I will have forgotten how many other urgent activities I had to put aside to complete my proposal, etc. In addition, everyone I talk to says that you never get an NEH fellowship the first time anyway (except that most of them did). Waiting for an NEH is neutralized by the necessary distance between desire and outcome and by the odds against you. It's like waiting for the end of capitalism. Sure it'd be great. And as Marx said, it's inevitable, right: the bourgeoisie = their own gravediggers. But it isn't likely to happen any time soon. Other fellowships (internal, or smaller) take less time and are thus more painful. We might think of these as reforms, not revolution: they eventually come in some form or other but when they do they are always less than is needed.

Right now, for me, it's an article that is making me crazy. I waited too long to submit it, I think. First, I waited too long in that I labored over the intro and conclusion until I probably crossed the improvement threshold and started back toward unimprovement. I also waited too long in that I submitted it at the end of March. I thought this might still get me a reading by May (when I had to submit the first part of my tenure review file): before summer, that is. But now it is the end of June and I'm wondering If there is any chance of hearing something before the start of the fall term. The MLA directory of periodicals says that this journal takes 2-4 months to get back on articles. But then many journals say they get your stuff back in 2-4 months. And is this like the 5-7 days to clear a check? 5-7 business days, that is. Academics don't work summers (except most of us do).

It is maddening (in an unpleasurable way) how long this process takes. Maybe the article will be back by job-letter time (I may need to write some). But this is still waiting for a possible negative result. Keats again: "That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd / A burning forhead, and a parching tongue".

The following line is better yet: "Who are these coming to the sacrifice?"

...Tagging

I have been tagged by adjunt whore and though I have never heard of such a thing I am happy to follow the rules as posted on her blog:

• I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
• Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Eight Random Facts / Habits:

1. The last time I voted for a Democrat was 1992. I have never voted Republican.
2. I will be very surprised if I get tenure this year.
3. Sometimes when people talk about the novel "Bleak House" I nod like I've read it even though I haven't.
4. I have decided that I will never read "Bleak House".
5. I like listening to the religious channels on the radio.
6. I will be very surprised if I do not get tenure this year.
7. I think Glasgow is a much cooler city than Edinburgh.
8. I find the ironically repressed look I associate with MLA conferences terrifically attractive.

At this point in my short-lived blogging career I do not yet know eight other bloggers to "tag". But I am reading around and finding my way so I will have to postpone for a bit this particular rule of the game.

...Close Reading

I'm having a difficult time keeping this blog-thing going - keeping it from becoming a useless political rant, that is. The link to the left (under "I could never hate Scotland, but..."), for instance, raises a host of questions and issues I am unqualified to comment upon (I had never heard much of what is reported in this piece, on the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103). It's a crazy story with all sorts of connections, many indirect, to our present political moment, and I am resisting for the time being the desire to say a bunch of things about these connections. It's enough to point to the piece for now and to ask, if anybody is reading this, if other peole have thoughts. Also, I'm terrified of flying on airplanes.

I'm inspired by other bloggers: their creative formats, readable voices, and interesting links. And I still really like the idea of writing in a more general, less academic way (though choosing the C19 periodical essay as a kind of model, or primary inspiration, was maybe a poor choice for getting started). My intention was to use this space for reflection on books, ideas, issues, etc. outside of or away from my academic interests. Now I guess I'm changing my mind.

I've been intrigued this past semester by a set of essays written by Franco Moretti under the title "Graphs, Maps, Trees" (see part 1: http://newleftreview.org/?view=2482). Moretti's is an attempt to chart - or really to render - a shift in literary study: away from "...the close reading of individual texts to the construction of abstract models" drawn from disciplines such as quanatative history, geography, and evolutionary theory. Moretti's conclusions are preliminary and provocative. And they have me wondering about the kind of work I do in the classroom and in my writing. The implicit premise behind Moretti's argument is that we have hit a kind of saturation point with regards to the kind of work we produce (in literary studies). At what point do we have enough close readings? Can we get closer to, say, Pride and Prejudice? When we find other, less well known texts from Austen's period should we subject them, too, to close readings? How many is enough? Or do only certain texts make themselves available to close reading?

Given recent bibliographic work and a host of assumptions practiced under the rubric of "cultural studies," it seems impossible, thinks Moretti, that we keep doing what we used to do. When I have raised this point with my students they have laughed dismissively (or excitedly) at the prospect of reading not too closely. Critics against close reading, though, are not for skimming (I don't think). They are against the whole set of disciplinary procedures and forms that comprise the practice of "close reading." Two questions: can Moretti's graphs, maps, trees actually get use closer to texts by moving us out and away from them (our eyes so close to the page now that the words have become blurry)? Or is this too missing the point. Closeness is not what models are after. What kind of work, then, do these abstract models allow for? And what would that work say about our disciplinary selves (what we write, teach, talk about, have conference panels on)?

Here's the big question: do they (or what they point to) offer an opportunity to make our field more and better connected (or relevant) to the world beyond academe?

Actually that was four questions.

Repetition with Indifference

Now that I have finished teaching my May-term course I have many days ahead to think and work and sweat (days are already consistently in the 90s here). While my partner (mlle gassy) is teaching her course I get to spend the bulk of my day with my 2-yr. old (gas fils). As we sit in our front yard relaxing in our pool (a little blow-up model from Target: my front yard screams redneck, especially toward the end of the week before I mow the weeds), little gas fils splashes in the pool while daddy complains about the world he will inherit. Grinning, gas fils adds an emphatic "yes" (with a splash) after each full stop in my rant.

And a random sampling of today's headlines provides much material for ranting. The NYTimes reports the beginning of the trial, in absentia, of 26 Americans accused of kidnapping an Egyptian terrorist suspect (see "Trial Opens Involving C.I.A. Rendition"). The suspect was sent (or rendered) to Germany and then to Egypt, where (he claims) he was subjected to torture. There is something particularly apt in the phrase "extraordinary rendition." The UK Independent (yesterday's) has a piece called "Bloodshed is Spreading across Afghanistan, warn Aid workers." The UK Guardian has a report on the recent BAE scandal (paying a Saudi prince one billion pounds in a shady arms deal). It also contains an editorial piece by Timothy Garton Ash entitled "There's one thing the U.S. presidential contenders all have in common: God." That one pretty much speaks for itself, I think. Most of these contenders seem pretty solid on war in Iraq, too. I wonder if there's any link? It's got to be more plausible than the Saddam Hussein / Al Queda connection.

Then again, maybe I'm just looking for all that's negative in the world? This is what my mother says. There are uplifting and positive stories in the papers. Why not say something about these? For instance, every paper I looked at this morning - American, British, and French - had a story about Paris Hilton being released from prison. Now here's the very image of together-ness. Popular culture unites us by what's best in all of us. In Paris Hilton, that is, we can see our collective-Western best self. What's next, for God's sake: agreement on climate change?

[For later: Timothy Garton Ash's point raises a host of questions, most of them pretty embarrassing. But one of them, I think, goes back to a previous post about teaching literary works. (It doesn't help too much with the question about scholarship.) This is something I would like to write more about. It may be the case that those of us working in humanities disciplines can help (or have been helping, or should help) to counter the insistence (in this country) that God is central to politics. A little enlightenment can be a dangerous thing.]

...Lewis Libby?

First of all, how much pleasure can I reasonably expect to gain by hating a grown man called "Scooter"? Not that I could ever like I. Lewis Libby, in whom (at present) is embodied all that is corrupt and stupid and violently vindictive and icky in our present government. 30 months in prison; that's great, I guess. Make it 30 years and what's the difference, really? Putting Libby in prison (which probably won't happen anyway) is akin to going after those privates who appeared in and took the Abu Ghraib photographs. Sure they're idiots - and much, much worse than idiots. But they hardly constitute the root of the problem.

Here is the last bit from Hazlitt's essay on hating:

"...[a]nd England, that arch-reformer, that heroic deliverer, that mouther about liberty and tool of power, stands gaping by, not feeling the blight and mildew coming over it, nor its very bones crack.... [Do] we not see hypocrisy, servility, selfishness, folly, and impudence succeed, while modesty shrinks from the encounter, and merit is trodden under foot? How often is 'the rose plucked from the forehead of a virtuous love to plant a blister there!' What chance is there of the success of real passion? What certainty of its continuance? Seeing all this as I do, and unravelling the web of human life into its various threads of meanness, spite, cowardice, want of feeling, and want of understanding, of indifference towards others and ignorance of ourselves - seeing custom prevail over all excellence, itself giving way to infamy - mistaken as I have been in my public and private hopes, calculating others from myself, and calculating wrong; always disappointed where I placed most reliance; the dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough."

Indeed.

...My Work

I am not sure if academic work is becoming increasingly irrelevant (that is to say, was there ever a time when it was relevant?) or if I am becoming increasingly aware of the irrelevance of most academic work. This is not a quality issue. I do not mean to suggest (as others have) that standards have fallen or that theory has ruined everything, etc. I mean to ask what is the point of academic writing in the first place?

"How is it that you live, and what is it you do?" (Wordsworth)

Recently, I had to put together part one of my tenure review file: the research part. This folder is sent to several referees around the country. These referees in turn decide whether or not my work constitutes a contribution to my field of study. This is a sickeningly worrisome process to me, raising as it does - as it is supposed to do? - my own insecurities about work, intellect, writing. But my worries are hardly an interesting topic to write about. The process has raised another concern as well, though, and this concern is something that has been nagging me for several years now (from the dissertation prospectus phase, in fact): if I am fortunate my work will pass as a viable contribution to my field. But to what does my field contribute?

I like my job and I like having a job. I like teaching; I like my students and my colleagues. I do not like where I live but that's acdemia, isn't it? I can and do see the relevance of teaching. I sometimes ask why I should teach Wordsworth or Conrad or Woolf - why I should teach literary works, that is. The answer I give myself changes a lot. One of the better recent answers I've seen from others comes from Mark Danner. In a speech he delivered to the 2005 graduating English class at UC Berkeley (entitled "Humanism and Terror (What are you going to do with that?): see http://www.markdanner.com/articles/show/humanism_and_terror_what_are_you_going_to_do_with_that), Danner (who has written on the Abu Ghraib photographs for the NYRB) highlights the fact that the current administration not only condones torture, it openly condones it: it does not conceal the fact, that is, that it is for torture. Still, despite the fact that documents and evidence regarding the atrocities of the government are easily accessible, few people look. Few people, perhaps, care. In this context, deciding to study literature, says Danner, is deciding to be someone who questions, who looks, who reads.

"We are divided [...] between those of us willing to listen, and believe, and those of us determined to read, and think, and find out. And you, English majors of the Class of 2005, you have taken the fateful first step in numbering yourselves, perhaps irredeemably, in the second category. You have taken a step along the road to being Empiricists of the Word. "

This sounds good to me. And the fact that Conrad or Woolf or Dostoevsky can give us a better sense of the complicated motivations behind violence, war, and treachery does not preclude the sheer pleasure of reading their books. Political and moral questioning can coexist with pleasure. It can be a pleasure (the pleasure of hating is my theme). But this is a digression. How and why does a scholarly book on Conrad or Woolf or Dostoevsky matter? Such books might make us better teachers, better readers, better thinkers or questioners. But do we really need another reading of "Resolution and Independence"? Not to sound too stuffy here, but what is the function of criticism at the present time? To not be read by more that seven people? OK. Are there other kinds of writing - more general, less scholarly - that perform the function outlined by Arnold: to create the ideas and materials out of which culture and cultural products can be formed? I don't think academic writing is doing this. But then maybe it has a different function (to qualify someone for Tenure, to establish competence in a given area of instruction?).

Another digression: In todays NYTimes there is a review of the new Zachary Leader bio of Kingsley Amis. The review is written by the Times film critic, A.O. Scott. The Times drives me crazy and I take great pleasure in hating it - almost as much pleasure as I take in reading it. The paper's wishy-washy political stances, the fact that it (along with most others) completely dropped the ball on the Iraq war, and the assumption in its culture pages that everybody struggles with their co-op board and that everybody is perhaps tired of the menu at Babbo: all of this makes me pull my hair out. Of course, there is good stuff, too. For example, in his wonderfully written review of the Amis bio, Scott references the following: in his own “Memoirs” Amis, "an ardent connoisseur of feminine beauty," called Margaret Thatcher “one of the best-looking women I have ever met.” “This quality is so extreme,” he continued, that “it can trap me for a second into thinking I am looking at a science-fiction illustration of some time ago showing the beautiful girl who has become President of the Solar Federation in the year 2220.”

I think there might be a good conference-paper topic here.

...Myself

There is a giant bug crawling along the wall directly behind my desk. When I first moved to this place the sight of these giant, flying roaches filled me with terror. Scrambling for a shoe, a book, a recent copy of the LRB - on second thought, no, not that - I would rush to quash the intimidating insect, usually missing on my first try. There I would be, weapon dropped, hands madly mussing hair and shirt, sure that the "straggling caitiff" was somewhere on my person. Eventually the creature would show itself: on the floor or lower on the wall. Then I would pick up my weapon and steady my hand and nerves. It is important to keep your eye on the bug as you are hitting it. Whack.

After awhile, I get used to the bugs. I start to use the flat of my hand to kill them. But this evening I leave the bug to pursue its course along the wall behind my desk. "I bear the creature no ill-will," as William Hazlitt wrote of a spider "crawling along [his] matted floor" (in 1823), "but still I hate the very sight of it." This is progress. I'm settling in, getting used to things.

"The spirit of malevolence survives the practical exertion of it. We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone. We give up the external demonstration, the brute violence, but cannot part with the essence or principle of hostility." (Hazlitt, "On the Pleasure of Hating")

How very apt these words seem today - in any number of contexts. Hitchens has recently claimed the mantle of Orwell. Zizek, in perhaps a more risky identification, wants to "repeat" and "reactualize" Lenin. "As Lenin himself would have put it," Zizek writes, "'fidelity to the democratic consensus' means the acceptance of the present liberal-parliamentary consensus, which precludes any serious questioning of how this liberal-democratic order is complicit in the phenomena it officially condemns, and, of course, any serious attempt to imagine a society whose socio-political order would be different." Fair enough. Lenin would certainly rile up the slumbering democrats who pass for "left" in this country. In addition, his party politics would present a formidable challenge to the better organized right. But I'm not Lenin. And I cannot write like Zizek - at least not for more than a sentence or two (probably). They will continue to crawl on their bellies, these democrats. Shoes won't keep them away for very long. And books, forget about it. But if they (and many other things, people, etc. soon to be detailed) are good for nothing else, they are good for hating (as Republicans have been for oh so long). This can be fun: a great source of pleasure. It does not have to be purely negative or wholly unproductive. "Without something to hate," exclaims Hazlitt, "we should lose the very spring of thought and action."

Such is a present case for taking up Hazlitt. I'm for hating (but not hate). I'm making a list, in fact.