Tomorrow is my PhD special fields exam, where I'll be asked a collection of questions that I wrote, studied for, and otherwise thought were appointment. To say I'm nervous is not to get at the intensity of feeling that I'm experiencing right now. I feel unprepared, to say the least, and I worry that I'll have sufficient to say when things open tomorrow.
I'm supposed to briefly touch on what I'm interested in exploring: how queer theory might help me think about how the state operates in the legibility of gender and race in the nineteenth century. If queer theory questions the stability of identity, the foundations of subjectivity, then queer theory would help me think about the vectors of power and representation that foreground the worlds of the early national and antebellum US.
What would a literary history look like that began with John Marrant's meditations on Indian removal, that then turned to writings on the relationship between state power and education (or futurity, rather) and seduction? Marrant practices a mode of being that resists assignation into particular categories.
Alright, that's a rambling mess. What if I thought about conversion in relation to seduction? Wouldn't that allow me to turn from John Marrant to other seduction narratives, helping me get at the material that gets suppressed and unstated in the seduction narratives of Charles Brockden Brown?
As I write all of this out, I'm beginning to sense how unwieldy my archive is. I mean, I've really got a ton of material that doesn't entirely cohere on its own. Must. Work. Harder.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Funeral, Band of Horses, Memories and Photos
I'm looking at a photo of my sister laughing with two of our nieces and nephews. She's got a huge grin on her face. No, scratch that, it's a full-fledged smile. Cheesy, if you will, and clearly evidence of some happy moment.
It was difficult, these past few years, to remember this smile of my sister. She learned the art of mastery and self-control, where a front could hide an internal pain or discomfort.
When she came out to see me--when we took a brief trip to Chicago--she only cried once. It was in the car, driving through fields of Midwestern grain, and I asked her how, beneath all of the smiles and laughter, she was really doing. Her voice choked briefly, ever so briefly, and she just said it was so hard to continue and she didn't like her life. She then stopped, caught her breath, and told me she didn't want to think about things anymore. I respected that, changed the subject to music, and we eventually arrived to Chicago. I'd like to imagine that Band of Horses played.
Or perhaps it was Mumford and Sons. I introduced her to these two bands during that trip, and she absolutely loved them.
Anyway, I'm now listening to Adele sing "Someone Like You." My eyes are sore from tears. My throat hurts, and I've accomplished nothing of the things I ought to do. My special fields exam is in a week from tomorrow. My heart hurts. Things taste bitter.
It was difficult, these past few years, to remember this smile of my sister. She learned the art of mastery and self-control, where a front could hide an internal pain or discomfort.
When she came out to see me--when we took a brief trip to Chicago--she only cried once. It was in the car, driving through fields of Midwestern grain, and I asked her how, beneath all of the smiles and laughter, she was really doing. Her voice choked briefly, ever so briefly, and she just said it was so hard to continue and she didn't like her life. She then stopped, caught her breath, and told me she didn't want to think about things anymore. I respected that, changed the subject to music, and we eventually arrived to Chicago. I'd like to imagine that Band of Horses played.
Or perhaps it was Mumford and Sons. I introduced her to these two bands during that trip, and she absolutely loved them.
Anyway, I'm now listening to Adele sing "Someone Like You." My eyes are sore from tears. My throat hurts, and I've accomplished nothing of the things I ought to do. My special fields exam is in a week from tomorrow. My heart hurts. Things taste bitter.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Thoughts on my sister
Apparently I have this blog. It's been a long, long time since I've written anything here, thought I've wanted to write things every now and then about various parts of my life. I never know the right format, however, to share the feelings that settle on my heart, nor do I know if my thoughts or feelings are even of sufficient value to justify turning toward them and thus away from "work," "others," and whatnot. But here I go.
So where to begin. I honestly don't know how to state the very thing that occupies my mind, the memory that is clouding my eyes with salt water and congesting my chest with pain. So let me just state it here, forthwrightly, clearly: my sister died a month ago and today I'm reliving every lost opporutnity I had to tell her how much I loved her.
In the Mormon tradition family is paramount and eternal, everlasting and foundational. I recall, as a young kid, regretting the thought that I'd be stuck to my family forever, hating the constant fights, the hurt feelings, the ever-present sorrow that seemed to infect my mom, the depression my father carried around like a bundle of bricks in a faded-blue backpack, my sisters with their insecurities. My sister--the sister who inspired this return to this blog and the one whose recent death lingers on my mind--felt similarly, though she shook off the constraints of theology to live with what she felt was more freedom. And at her death, I find no comfort in any sense of Mormon family continuity or anything of that like. But rather, I'm comforted by the realization that my sister lived her life rougher than a goddamn tornado.
I ramble. I'd like to say something more, something about pain, longing, love, but I'm led to this song to explain everything: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjecIllOEio
So where to begin. I honestly don't know how to state the very thing that occupies my mind, the memory that is clouding my eyes with salt water and congesting my chest with pain. So let me just state it here, forthwrightly, clearly: my sister died a month ago and today I'm reliving every lost opporutnity I had to tell her how much I loved her.
In the Mormon tradition family is paramount and eternal, everlasting and foundational. I recall, as a young kid, regretting the thought that I'd be stuck to my family forever, hating the constant fights, the hurt feelings, the ever-present sorrow that seemed to infect my mom, the depression my father carried around like a bundle of bricks in a faded-blue backpack, my sisters with their insecurities. My sister--the sister who inspired this return to this blog and the one whose recent death lingers on my mind--felt similarly, though she shook off the constraints of theology to live with what she felt was more freedom. And at her death, I find no comfort in any sense of Mormon family continuity or anything of that like. But rather, I'm comforted by the realization that my sister lived her life rougher than a goddamn tornado.
I ramble. I'd like to say something more, something about pain, longing, love, but I'm led to this song to explain everything: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjecIllOEio
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