Stuck in a Body?

There aren't enough fingers and toes to count all the things I should be doing, but I've been puzzling about the word embodied recently. I thought I may as well puzzle in the company of my three or so readers as alone. Thanks for joining me...

Embodiment is one of those words/phrases--like critical theory--often heard but seldom, at least by me, understood. (Of course, I'm frightfully adept at complicating everything, so I'm inclined here to throw up my hands before I start, mumble about the limits of epistemology, and say 'who can know it'? But how does that help anything? So, off we go.)

Last semester, playing the role of Enthusiastic Student, I learned that linguists often analyze language at the morphemic level. Morphemes (must not call them words, I learned, even though that's what they often are) are the smallest units of meaning in a language, I think. (If I remember correctly. I will check tonight.) Morphemes can be piled together to make complex meaning. (I paraphrase.) Such is the case with embodiment. Body is the root. em the prefix meaning i-don't-know-precisely-what-but-I'll-look-it-up, and ment the suffix, which I think, in English, makes something a noun.

What a body is is clear enough, I suppose. And roughly, I suppose embodiment means the noun form of being within a body. Embody is to put something within a body, the verb, I suppose. (I stop for a moment to scratch at the surface of how complex the mind is, without the framework or vocabulary to properly form thoughts. How interesting that, in English at least, a person can ponder the state of being within a body and can think about what it means to put something inside a body, or to act out with the body a something.)

I also stop for the present, because I have two projects that need finalized for press, one that requires a significant amount of research before it can go to the designer, three potential freelancers to contact, and as many press releases to write. More soon.

Explaining My Absence

A blog, I think, is like a garden and should be tended frequently. I, however, am finding it difficult to tend the blog with appropriate frequency. (This should come as no surprise. I specialize in overthinking the straightforward and generally making things difficult.) Perhaps Sam Johnson and his assertion that conversation should be about matters public and that question-answer is not a suitable form of address has shaped me more than I like. Or, in twenty-first century parlance, blogging is embarrassing because I'm not broadly (or deeply) thought enough to converse about a matter without making it "about me." Huh.

When I'm intimidated by a task, I usually make lists that break projects into component parts and tackle the parts. So, here is a list of topics I'm interested in exploring with my aforementioned friends (see previous post), even if said explorations are trite and over-discussed (I missed these discussions, or I wouldn't be curious about them); my/our ideas are ill-formed and incomplete; and the mode of conversation would draw the scorn of Mr. Johnson:

1. Why public celebrations are painful, as in peinlich.
2. Hannah Arendt as the intersection of questions about gender and political philosophy.
3. What it means to be "embodied."
4. The relationship between, and ethics of, communication, marketing, and propaganda.

I'm certain that there are more, but isn't four a nice number to start with?

Let Her Eat Cake, Or, What My Friends Do on Saturdays

I suspect that Rosebud is enjoying chocolate cake for breakfast; that the Reluctant Solicitor is still enslumbered; that the Erstwhile Medievalist is plotting his entry into the ultralight backpacking world and enjoying the hour before we have to excavate the study; that the Aspiring Pediatrician is feeling guilty about not being in the lab; and that the Renaissance Ballerina is being poked from slumber by small children with clammy hands. I like having friends with funny names.

Fits and Starts; Or How I Made a Beginning of the Great Work

I spent the better part of the day working on the Great Work. I pulled together various sources and notes on sources for the first chapter and after a long time off from such work, my brain is slowly starting to move.

I do not know how other people work, or write, but at some point (after much struggling and staring blankly at the screen, hands poised over the keyboard), something clicks and I find clarity and direction. (There is nothing magical about this; my brain just finally...works.) Some people, I have observed, write quickly and without the struggles I have. Today, I circled that point of "clicking" and words came to me.

Today, I contemplated Catholic gender expectations for women in the nineteenth century. I also thought (and to a lesser extent) wrote a few lines on the place of women religious* in the nineteenth century. Ruminating about what society expected of women in history is something to which I continually return. That and what the reality of women's lives was. It is a difficult thing to determine, particularly with nineteenth century women religious. I am blessed with more sources than historians of earlier periods, but still there is much lacking from the archives. I suppose every historian hopes to stumble across that long-forgotten and overlooked personal narrative which reveals marvelous detail about women's real lives. Ah, but real historical work does not happen that way, does it? We plod; we mull over bits and pieces. And if we have done our jobs, we come to some conclusions, marvelous or not, that provides a bit of clarity into the past.

* Women religious: In the Catholic context, sisters or nuns.
**Painting: Antoine Plamondon’s 1841 painting of socialite-turned-nun Sister Saint-Alphonse, born Marie-Louise Emilie Pelletier. See David Johnston, "Quebec Exhibit Features 'Canadian Mona-Lisa,'" Times Colonist, April 7, 2008, http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=dd7576df-932b-4cae-9b4e-75b788725752&k=47271.

Why I Sound Stupid At Work

Professor: "Well, the question of whether torture's justifiable is shortly to be a rhetorical question, isn't it"? [On reviewing a marketing piece about torture]

Me: "Really?"

Professor: "Well, as of Wednesday, it will be anyhow. Right?"

Me: "Oh"? [Very flummoxed here. Whatever could this person mean?]

Professor: "Well, you know Obama's going to stop torture, on Wednesday, right?" [Smile and all seriousness, hope, and change]

Me: "Well, yes, there is that." [OMG. You have more years of formal schooling than I have adult teeth--ok, slight, but only very slight, hyperbole--and you are simple enough to believe that action, and indeed the human heart, can be changed by POLICY? Haven't you read your GULAG?!]

My little inside voice is scaling upward in disbelief, and I scram before it squeaks out and I start a fight with one of the most bludgeoning propagandists on the faculty.

Snowy Day

It is a snowy day and it is quite lovely out my window. I am not one to quote poetry, as some people seem to be able to do. I can never remember the verses. But, for some reason the following poem has stuck in my brain today. It is obvious, but nice all the same.

Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost (1923)

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Nothin'

Everyone's mother says that if one can't say anything nice, one oughtn't say anything at all, yes? Well, it's -10, feels like -27. I'm already fifteen minutes late for work, but the Erstwhile Medievalist doesn't have to teach today (obviously, he works for a state university). He's going to stay home and read blogs or books while drinking hot chocolate and huddling under blankets. Therefore, I've nothing to say. Seriously.

Embodiment and Creativity

The feminine voice in print embarrasses me. Therefore, I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm reading a book with a distinctly feminine voice. It is not an academic book. As a matter of fact, it verges on a self-help book. It is a book about recovering creativity. (Pause while I check the thermostat. If my nose and fingers aren't freezing, something's wrong.) All of these aspects of Julia Cameron's work make me distinctly uncomfortable--like someone important just saw me reading Sweet Valley High, or Thirteen is Too Young to Die. Despite these, my hangups, I am intrigued by this paragraph:

"Although we often speak of having a 'body of work,' we do not often look at the place that 'body' occupies relative to our work. We tend to think of creativity as an intellectual construct, something rather disembodied and vaguely spiritual. this notion is nonsense. creativity is not something ethereal. I is something very real, an energy that best serves us when it is grounded, and we ground our creativity through our bodies, most easily and most sensibly through walking."

Creativity is housed in a form, a shape, a body. Hmm. Enough thinking and enough feminine voice. I'm off to Brandy Sidecar No. 2 of the evening, and class reading No. 1 of the semester.

Teaching and Standards: Or Why I Do Not Care If Students Have to Read

The Spring semester began today. I love the first day of school; it is quite thrilling. I used to love to see what we would learn this year or this semester. I did not even mind homework, but I was an odd child. I have one class this term, and I am eager for it to start. (I work full time elsewhere and cannot teach more than one class right now.) My class, a course dealing with American Women's history, has not met yet; it will start in a couple days.

I have been teaching this class for several semesters in a row without interruption. While that may seem repetitive (and it can be), I do not mind. The way I look at it, I have the chance to get it right the next time. As an adjunct, beggars cannot be choosers about what one teaches. That I am able to teach this class at all is gratifying (I could be stuck in Survey Land). Lately, however, I have felt that I could do better with this class. Last semester I attempted to infuse more life into it (and it helped me and the students) and this semester I will do even more. Consequently, I am excited for the class to begin to see if my recent changes will work.

The biggest complaint I get from students is that there is too much reading. Frankly, I do not care if they have to read more than 30 pages a week, but I know that if I do not adjust the readings to a certain degree, I will lose students. To say that I am slightly frustrated by this is an understatement. My students tend to be employed full time and have family responsibilities. They are struggling to better themselves. Many are also woefully unprepared for my class, but they need it (or one like it) to graduate. What is the solution? I believe an upper level history course should entail a degree of reading and work. If I cut too much, the course loses its meaning and purpose. If I cut too much from it to make it more palatable for the students, do I not do a disservice to their education?

AHA!

Last Friday, we went to New York City to attend the American Historical Association annual conference. I had never been to New York City and I was rather excited to go (despite my irrational fears of the dangers of the big city). The highlight of the weekend was getting together with people I had not seen in a while. Of course, for those of you familiar with the AHA conference, the book exhibit was also a draw, but really not as much as in the past. I wondered if that was because of the set-up (the exhibit was in two different locations and not all in one place) or did the publishers not bring as much. We did manage to add a few (or twelve) more titles to our already over-crowded shelves.

I am in that difficult career place where I need to publish something, but do not yet have something ready to publish. The book exhibit in a way is a reminder of my shortcomings. The AHA in the past has been quite daunting--all the fancy people with their fancy degrees, sexy topics, and an inordinate use of jargon. Now that I have the degree, the long worked-for PhD, it is not so daunting or fancy. Is it because I have the degree? Or is it because I am too busy and tired to care? The AHA has always been a draw for me, but I intellectually enjoy the smaller meetings. I learn more from my colleagues; I return enthused and recharged to do better, to get more accomplished. The AHA now...am I alone in feeling that is only a glorified (and expensive) reunion weekend and book fare?