Two days ago I was sicker than I’ve been in a long time. No one wants the details, but believe me, not fun. Grandma had it over the weekend and mom got the worse case Monday–we had to call 911. Truly scary to suddenly find yourself on a tv show, which is the only place I’ve seen ambulances up close before. What I really mean is– truly, truly scary to think your mom is having a heart attack and see her being put into an ambulance, and emts swarming around her.

Now I’m at the history conference, still a little woozy, at the utterly gorgeous San Diego Convention Center area (read mucho buckos) with no interviews ahead. And lots and lots of walking in high heels. Well, if I have to spend tons of money I don’t have, I can’t fault the locale. And I’m lucky to have my grandmother just a couple hours away.

Off to drop off some cvs, then meet up with some people for dinner (? what will I eat? I had saltines for breakfast, pop and plain rice and beans for lunch–which was a big step forward). Could use some water at least.

Time to stop procrastinating and start networking.

No news about my phone interview yet.

For all of you who don’t follow Twitter obsessively, let me share Stephen Fry’s New Years’ Eve wish:

Utter sodden happy lunatic inebriated madness hug to everyone xxx

Went to see Invictus tonight. It was a cool theater–a pub where we could get pizza and beer and watch the movie. My grandma really wanted to see Blind Side, but I didn’t think I could handle it. Invictus seemed like maybe it would be a bit better. Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela was pretty awesome. But I still felt nagged the whole time by the cheeriness of the movie. In the beginning there were at least a few hand waves at the way race relations was in South Africa, but by the end it’s just pure sugar syrup as the Rugby Team’s World Cup victory overcomes all the hatred of the past (with absolutely no mention of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which did far more than a Rugby team did to unite the country, as much as it has united).

I was surprised that the New York Times review didn’t mention this, but overall gave it a good review (indeed, 89% of the Top Critics did, according to Rotten Tomatoes). Through Rotten Tomatoes, I found this review, which documents the several ways in which the Rugby Team continued in its racist ways after the 1995 victory and also gives some more historical context to the movie.

After watching “Invictus” and “Precious”, two heavy doses of racially inspirational hokum that should be thrown in the same bonfire as “Blind Side”, you really have to wonder if it is no coincidence that this junk is winding up in movie theaters in the first year of a “post-racial” White House. To one degree or another, all of these wretched movies harp on the notion of Black victimhood and the key role of white paternalism in “saving” Black people. And in each case, the audience is hoodwinked into believing that the movie is about the real world rather than some liberal fantasy.

At least in Invictus, Mandela is the most compelling character, far more than Matt Damon’s role (Francois). Francois doesn’t save Mandela so much as Mandela saves Francois. But the racial happiness at the end is just too much to take–Francois’ father is an ugly racist for most of the movie, but happily accepts Francois’ suggestion that they bring the black maid along to the match.

The reviewer quoted above also notes

The path to racial harmony, we are led to believe, is people going through some kind of conversion rather than structural change.

Some of the women I study (black women in the 1920s) advocated a kind of interpersonal race relations–they argued that developing friendships among black and white women could in fact have a positive affect on national politics and the condition of African Americans in the country. I wonder sometimes, though, if I hear this more readily b/c it is such a feel good message. I want to be the person in the audience who loves the racial harmony movie, yet I know reality so often differs. Yet, in a few instances, sometimes racial harmony does happen, just not nearly as much as Hollywood would lead us to believe, nor with such uplifting music in the background.

Hmmm. Interesting. Just read the About page about the reviewer–he’s a staunch Marxist. The past never dies, just re-imagines itself.

A little bit ago, I had a conversation on the blog with a vegan about the treatment of animals. This recent NY Times piece about the way plants sense and respond to the world is an interesting challenge to the vegan critique of killing animals.

I have an interview!! Super excited about it. Cool school–small liberal arts college. Phone interview next week.

Teaching is very important to the interviewers–as you can imagine. So this weekend I am thinking about teaching (as well as continuing to try to get my diss finished. Just went back and put all the citations into a chapter I wrote in a real hurry right before printing it all out to give to my advisor. Had skipped some of the citations as a way to move faster…oh and now I remember there are still a few more).

Anyway–let me use this forum to think about teaching.

One thing I have found very frustrating teaching at a major university is the way that undergraduates seem to be ignored. Now part of that is because I haven’t been in on any of the faculty discussions about undergraduate teaching, but I was just amazed at the way no one provided me with guidance or oversight for my first class taught on my own (other than offering a few sample syllabi). I did the best I could that semester, and some things came out great (several student’s papers) and some things came out miserably (some of the reviews). But I need to not think about those things–need to project confidence and enthusiasm, not too much humility or ability to learn from mistakes.

My hope for my future career was either to be in a major research one institution to support my research or to be in a dynamic, small liberal arts college where there is a real focus on undergraduate education and mentoring. I want to know my students more than seeing a fresh set of 75 or 100 or 300 each semester. I have a few anecdotes of when I have mentored students that I think will be helpful to the conversation.

Hmmm, but this is still too waver-y…

I want students to come away from my class having practiced critical thinking skills, but even more so having confronted the moral and political complexity within our society and between different societies. I want to encourage the enthusiasm of youth for social change, while at the same time grounding them in some of the real complexities of moral decision making. Good people have too often done nothing or done something bad because of a simplistic view of the world and the problem (and I would suggest good people on either side of the political divide).

I also want students to partake of my enthusiasm for history and to cultivate their own joy of learning. I want to give them tools so that that joy need never go unwatered in their future life. College should help students learn how to approach a future life, not give students everything they need so that they need never learn again. That is why the environment is so important. It is not just about taking the classes–it’s about living in the dorms, encountering teachers outside the classroom. Chatting about life with people who are more interesting than you and finding new ways to be excited about the world.

This school mentions not just learning critical thinking, but also exploring one’s imagination. What a wonderful union of purpose for someone always fascinated by the art and the science of the world.

One of the reasons I love Kurt Andersen and his show Studio 360 is that he unites science and art in this really beautiful way. One of his recent fascinations has been the Large Hadron Collidor–does my ex-physicist heart good to read about it all.

Did I mention I met Kurt Andersen in New York and he knew my twitter name? Ahhh, social media can be good. That Live taping of Studio 360 will be one of those things burned into my memory that I tell my grandchildren about later.

Grandma tells me about all the things she did the year she was in Chicago to study Medical Technology (did you know such a thing existed during the Great Depression? Well Northwestern had a program). I’ll tell my kids about Janelle Monae spiking her mike stand, morphing into android Cindi Mayweather, and being completely, bloody, brilliant. I shoulda told people I wanted her CD for Christmas.

I used to be surprised when I would come across a novel with a academic protagonist–until I realized that we are very numerous, we write and we read.

The New York Times mentions another field we’re starting to invade: Comedy. I’m all for it.

Dad and I watched the Obama Christmas special last night, hosted by Oprah. I was struck by how much confidence and humility both Obama’s exude. They are willing to admit challenges and difficulties, while discussing their achievements with reality. I knew there was a gloss of public relations over the whole thing, but I’m used to that. What i was surprised by was the reality that came through. Then we get into the car this morning, looking for traffic on the radio and hear a talk radio woman spout off on Obama’s extreme narcissism. You can talk about a lot of Obama’s problems–the good and bad outcomes of his pragmatism among them–but narcissism? Did she watch the same show I did?

Here’s a snippet from the autobiography I’m (still) reading instead of writing, but I may at least have found a way to get into my conclusion:

“Whenever someone suggests the legislative process as the way to achieve justice in our nation, I am reminded of the shock of the staff of the National Council for a Permanent FEPC [Fair Employment Practices Commission] felt as we discovered the difficulty of even securing hearings on a bill once it was introduced, and when I began work on the Civil Rights Bill of 1963 I discovered anew the opposition to fair employment practices for all Americans, though twenty years have passed.”

The first book I found, I started reading it and found a sentence that was missing from my Chapter 5.3. The second book I picked up (which I originally read about two years ago, before I knew about a lot of the connections I know  about now), I’ve only managed to read about three pages and have had to add quotes to Chapters 2.4, 4.1 and 4.2. This is why I shouldn’t read books. And yet those sentences and quotes really improve those chapters.

Also, look at this fascinating dedication to this autobiography I picked up (and stuck at the head of my conclusion for now):

“To my husband, Merritt, who has never permitted the fact that I am a woman to color his judgment of me or his support of my work. He has continued in my life the gentle understanding qualities of my mother, Ellen Parker Arnold, and the intellectual toughness of my father, William James Arnold.”

I’m in an academic library with free high speed internet and several books that I’ve been missing. It’s a happy day. Maybe I’ll even convince my brain to work on my conclusion.