Women's Studies First on the Chopping Block in Hard Times

Women's Studies, African Studies, and other multicultural university departments and programs are first on the chopping block amidst steep budget cuts. Last year the USF WST department pulled a massive effort together to oppose merging all the "marginal" cultural departments into one department, and they were successful not because of the letters from famous feminists on their behalf, but because of student-lead protests. As an alumnus of USF and beneficiary of the strong WS department there (the largest in the south and the oldest in FL) I was proud and relieved to see its survival, and with the Obama presidency, I saw the pendulum swinging back toward the important work of small departments like these.

But I was breathing that sigh of relief too quickly. Jenn Moore posted this information on the Women's Studies list serve: "This year something similar [to USF], but arguably more dire, is happening at Florida Atlantic
University where the school is may be using the recession as an excuse to dissolve the Women's, Gender,
and Sexuality Studies department and its MA program."

The global gag rule has just been reversed, and the Lily Ledbetter Act has passed congress, but feminists are so, so not out of the hot water. I am not surprised that people against WS would use this time of financial crisis to get rid of progressive departments, but we can't let them win. It's true that budget cuts are very real and very big, but it's a repression of information and educational opportunity to systematically ax multicultural and gender/sexuality focused departments and programs of study, as Jessica on Feministing reports is the case in Georgia.

Post-feminists are using this opportunity to use economicspeak to argue that WS has outlived its usefulness, akin to arguments that American car companies deserve to fail if they aren't profitable. But to this charge, I answer that I've been involved with WS programs at three universities, and they had strong enrollment and an excellent record of service and community involvement, the professors strong records of publication and leaders in their fields. I know it's not just about WS, because for instance philosophy departments are also having to defend themselves, but what the fields most often in trouble have in common is that they are are seen as more "feminine" and generate less revenue, lead generally to lesser paying jobs, are in essence less "masculine," so while there are targeted attacks on race and gender studies, there are also attacks that consider themselves to be quantitative but succumb to patriarchal assumptions of value.

Hmpf.

The Herd Mentality Prevails in the Windy City

Having read Eliot Weinberger's 1983 essay, "The Bomb," in his classic Works on Paper, published on New Directions, I started immediately looking online for more. There is an article in Bomb Magazine, a conversation between Weinberger and poet Forrest Gander on why "they are confounded by the astounding absence of the role of poet as a public cautionary figure."

The essay "The Bomb" is a must, especially with these next few days seemingly everywhere devoted--from Facebook, to blogs, to poets' invitational emails--to the AWP Conference in Chicago. As early as 1983 Weinberger is pointing out the poet's "recently acquired status as a wage-earner" and its necessary complications involving literature in the affairs of the state (i.e., university chairs, federal grants, and the like).

Amiri Baraka, who took part in the (now-largely forgotten, I think) May 26, 1982 "Poets Against the End of the World" reading at NYC's Town Hall, thought that the long shadow of The Bomb would lead to "dynamic, socially relevant poetry" which, to Weinberger at that time, remained to be seen. Naturally, this hasn't come to pass, at least in the large-scale poetry "movements" of contemporary America, aside from small pockets here and there.

Political thought in poetry, aside perhaps from Marvin Bell's Mars Being Red, is largely absent. After the Town Hall reading, Poetry East quoted Maxine Kumin as saying "Poetry is too fragile an art for polemic" and this attitude has remained indelibly marked on the contemporary consciousness. But why?

Weinberger draws a distinction in the identity of the poet: that they are not only poets, but also citizens (a thought Socrates would have appreciated) and, as far as writers go, capable of writing something other than poetry. Like essays, for example. Whether they recognize this is something else entirely. One would be hard pressed to find political poets of the caliber of Neruda today (forgiving him, and others, for their misguided rhetoric, all things considered) though you could find Vallejo's at a discount in any online publiction, wearing a political sensibility on their sleeves, perhaps, but certainly not a solid stance.



Poetry, for all its pretensions to "gnosis," is rather a series of "communities of like souls in remote mountain fastnesses" and "communities addicted to whimsey, nostalgia, preciosity" according to Weinberger. It's hard not to quote at length from this essay of this contemporary poetic "longing for Dada or Surrealism" that results in most of the poetry published in the online journals from the aesthetic left consisting largely of "a talking in tongues" where "fleeting insights are netted and pinned to the page." But if today's poets were living, let alone understanding, a true gnosis they would realize the impact of Herakleitos: "You cannot hide from that which will not go away."


So what will not go away? Human suffering, war, poverty. The hysteria of anticommunism of Weinberger's time has been replaced by the hysteria of anti-terrorism, but where are the answers from our poets? As Weinberger suggests, (and correctly, particularly if one reads the plethora of "bios" on poets) today's American poets are entirely dependent on the military state. How many are feeding the university system, both with their tuition and their energy, whether as students or teachers? Poets have become, essentially, "wards of the state."


And this weekend they are gathering in droves to congratulate themselves in Chicago. To sell their books, to give their readings, to meet and shake hands and to drink, as one poet put it, "over-priced drinks." Like an island in the midst of a public that one poet once claimed to me "had no taste."


As Weinberger notes in a footnote, "a magnificent half-century of American poetry ended when the poets allowed themselves to be organized and controlled by the two traditional enemies of poetry: the university and the state."


(all quotes from Eliot Weinberger's Works on Paper, published by New Directions Press in 1986; photo credit: Nina Subin)

‘All that remains is time’: Béla Tarr’s simple truth

Yes, yes, it’s a film that’s (rather shockingly) a good nine years old now, but I treated myself to a second viewing of Werckmeister harmóniák (2000) last night and feel compelled to share the joy, as always.

Besides, there’s always a chance that there are people out there who, like me, have heard little of what I reckon must be Hungary’s – nay, Europe’s – best living filmmaker in our very midst. Part of the reason for this is because, quite simply, his work hasn’t been in a great hurry to get itself translated and exported over here and elsewhere; but now that is it available I urge anyone interested in ‘film’ (rather than ‘movies’) to put your life on hold until you are able to bask in Tarr’s style of filmic greatness.

Béla Tarr does not tell stories; he aims for something simpler, clearer. Ultimately, he wants to show humanity, to bring the audience closer to the people on screen. Verbal communication is secondary to the physical presence of his characters, which is why we are graced with long takes, slow, brooding camerawork, and bleak, beautiful landscapes in which these people can move and breathe. Tarr claims that this unhurried approach is an attempt to follow an underlying logic that lies in not in what is said, but in the smaller details within a scene – Tarr avoids the ‘usual’ style of editing (which he describes as being information – cut – information) as although that approach can follow the logic of a story, it doesn’t follow the ‘logic of life’.

Although often compared to Tarkovsky, Tarr has no interest in religious, political, or even philosophical matters. Werckmeister harmóniák is perplexing if you try to rationalise it – is it an allegory? A rumination on political opportunisim, collective anxiety, chaos? Existential terror? No. Apparently it is exactly how it appears on the screen: “this guy who is walking up and down the village and has seen this whale.”

He may use literature as his source material, but Tarr sees film as speaking a more primitive language. “We take a novel and ruin it. And then our work is to find the right locations and bring life to it. We have to rediscover everything – and that reality must be ours.” Tarr wants you to use your eyes: “Watch. That’s important. Don’t think about it too much. Everyone can understand it if they don’t complicate it.”

“If you get closer to the people you saw on the screen; touched by the beauty of the destitute, then we’ve achieved something.” So if you haven’t already, go find yourself a copy of Werckmeister harmóniák and simply watch it, and take pleasure in it’s stark and simple beauty.

*Any of the un-linked quotations came from the interview on my lovely DVD

A Final Post on Updike (Part X)

I knew Fringe had to run a tribute to Updike when I broke the news to the editors and received this email in response:

“Damn! No more girl-at-the-supermarket-has-nice-legs i'm-a-bastard-but-i-said-so-so-i'm-immune-from-criticism stories! Wait . . . . that's probably not true at all.”

Someone whose death could inspire such a sarcastic email surely deserved a deeper investigation, possibly from people who actually revered and were troubled by Updike (or Updick, as one ladies' book club dubbed him many years ago).  

 Sure, we’ve run a project trying to speed the demise of the all-white all-male canon , and personally, I’ve spent a fair amount of time being angry at the canon, and by extension Updike, Melville and Cormac McCarthy, but while I'm feeling generous toward the dead, I'll say that it wasn’t Updike’s fault that people liked him, and his prolific output alone makes him worth emulating and eulogizing.

I was surprised that when I heard the news about Updike, I felt a little sad. I only read his work when my MFA workshops forced me to. During our discussion of “Pigeon Feathers” I’m sure I used phrases like “hetero-patriarchal order,” which is one of my favorites to say aloud because it has so many syllables.

But Updike had his finger on the pulse of a certain kind of life. Certain passages in “Pigeon Feathers” are stunning, and even if they’re tapping into the white hetero-patriarchal zeitgeist that our culture thrusts upon us, at least they tap into something real.

For some time now, my anger at the canon has been receding and the likelihood that I’ll read a Rabbit novel has been rising. As one of my mentors might say, I’m lucky to have Updike to look forward to. And I’ll get right on it once I’m done with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And The Age of Innocence. And Middlesex. And writing my book.

John Updike, American man of letters, we’ll miss you.

Cross posted at LizzieStark.com

Introducing SAVE Creative Writing

Hi all. Remember me? I'll forgive you if you don't. It's been a while. It's not like I fell out of a tree or anything. I got laid off and had to scramble to find a paid gig. I'll tell you about the troubled California economy another day. Right now I'm I introducing SAVE.

How many people does it take to reach Anthony Bourdain?
One, if you're me and you know how to find him.

How many people does it take to reach America's writers? To be exact, the specific subset of writers that attended Vassar College? I don't know. That's where you folk come in. (FYI, Bourdain attended but did not graduate)

Currently, due to budget cuts, the creative writing program at Vassar is facing severe budget cuts. If passed they threaten to undermine the integrity of the creative writing program.

To follow the fight against these cuts and find out how you can help visit SAVE Creative Writing

"Body Positive" Simpson and a Girl's Internalized Ideal

I can't name a single song Jessica Simpson sings, and I only saw her act once in The Dukes of Hazard film which some ex-boyfriend or other dragged me to see, but I've followed her life and beauty transformations via the continuous updates to the headlines on supermaket tabloids. When she lost weight after the divorce and emerged better than ever, I took note because her weight loss was accompanied with muscle tone; for that reason she's been a fitness icon for me along the same lines as Angelina Jolie (another fitness letdown since post-babies she's just ghastly thin) circa Lara Croft films.

But since last week pictures of a heavier Simpson have emerged, along with long lines of discussions about it that range from nasty and abusive to celebratory, or murmurs of publicity stunt. I stand somewhere in the middle of all these ideas. On one hand, yes, in the middle of a global economic crisis why is the media giving a celeb's weight gain this much press, and shame on all of us including me for giving the topic so many brain cells. And while she's not super-skinny she's not "fat," and if she walked into a bar just as she is, she'd find herself surrounded by admirers, some of whom are denouncing her weight gain at present. Really she should be applauded for not apologizing away her weight gain as depression-related and instead just saying she's happy with herself as she is.

At the same time, well Simpson at present is no fitness icon. When I pulled her picture up on my computer, I said to my husband "Oh, my goodness, Jessica Simpson is bigger than I am!" I felt betrayed. I work out for 2 hours 4-5 days a week to stay in my size 4-6 clothes, and when I do all that work, I have the vision that my life is resembling as closely as possible that of the rich and famous at least when we're all sweating at a pilates class. I don't do it for men to notice me. My husband wouldn't care if I wore a size 12, but I do it for the little girl inside of me who hasn't outgrown her dream to be revered on the red carpet, and it's important to me that the women who do "make it" appear as perfection I'll never achieve. That makes it feel fair to me that I'm at home eating peanuts while they wear ball gowns that cost more than my car. This is the same line of thinking that causes me to hold writing from writers my own age who've "made it" to an insanely high ideal.

Perhaps this is a publicity stunt from which Simpson will emerge triumphantly thin and touting some diet or exercise program. And if she is really here to stay as she is, well I say let's be body-positive and extend to her the same standard we give our girlfriends whom we love and find beautiful at whatever shape or size. But for myself, I'm staying on my exercise routine at present, just in case. I guess it will take more than one star crossing the divide between "them" and "us" for me to believe it's okay for me to also relax. Perhaps there are others I can look toward instead, like did you see the muscle tone on Anne Hathaway's thighs in Bride Wars?

Down but not out

When a friend told me that John Updike had passed away, I surprised him with the gravity of my response. “It’s been a tough year for the literary world,” I said, sighing.

I was thinking, of course, of another profound loss last September.

While most industries are nothing but gloom and doom these days, the literary field has taken quite a few beatings as of late. There’s the demise of the publishing industry; the technological take-over of books; the ongoing crisis of the short attention span; the destruction of quality literature; the downsizing of newspapers and columns; the influx of dirty, lying memoirists; and the harmful deluge of more creative writing MFA programs. Hell, even Toni Morrison’s latest book was met with little to no excitement and so-so reviews.

By all accounts, it’s a terrible time to be a writer. The great ones are dying off in record number, and the new ones can’t compete with snappy blogs, clever tweets, and celebrity tell-alls.

The way I see it, in times such as these, writers have three options: (1) Drink yourself into oblivion to numb the pain caused by the demolition of your dreams, (2) Throw in the towel and finagle your way into an industry that isn’t dying, like, say, fundraising, or (3) Use the pain to fuel your writing, and write your fucking hands off.

I intend to try to do the latter. Despite all evidence to the contrary, writers may be down, but as history has shown us, we’re never out. According to Updike, “The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it.”

So I say pick yourself up and keep at it. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always option #1.