whose commonality is the NYTimes
Numerous updates as a tool of evasion for writing paper about migration and gender…
(And how did I not have a “religion” tag until today?)
My work is turned in. I still have some grading to do. Or a lot of grading. I need to coherently bring my thoughts on this semester together and write about it. However, knowing me and my attention span that won’t happen for awhile.
I have some thoughts on teaching too that I feel isn’t appropriate to share in such a public place. However, I will say this: it many ways it was a real joy toward the end to be teaching something I knew so well. Whether or not my students felt the same way is a different case altogether.
I also am hesitant to write about my overall experience in great detail as well. I will wrote more effectively about it soon enough. But I do know this I was challenged in brand news ways and that was great. I’m very excited to be pursuing this line of work 
I’d love to sleep for more than five hours though sometimes this week!
About 200 employees of Republic Windows and Doors began their sit-in Friday, the last scheduled day of the plant’s operation.
Leah Fried, an organizer with the United Electrical Workers, said the Chicago-based vinyl window manufacturer failed to give 60 days’ notice required by law before shutting down.
Workers also were angered when company officials didn’t show up for a meeting Friday that had been arranged by U.S. Rep Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat, she said.
During the peaceful takeover, workers have been shoveling snow and cleaning the building, Fried said.
“We’re doing something we haven’t since the 1930s, so we’re trying to make it work,” Fried said.
We’ll see…
On Nov. 18, Bernstein was discussing the conditions under which African captives were taken to America in slave ships. She bound the two students’ hands and feet with tape and had them crawl under a desk to simulate the experience, Monahan and Shand said. Monahan said the girls were not the only blacks in the class.
Gabrielle Shand burst into tears at home, her mother said.
“There are other ways to demonstrate slavery,” Christine Shand said Friday. “It doesn’t matter the color of the kids, it’s just not right to tie them up. My daughter is still upset, still embarrassed. She didn’t go to school today.”
Wow. I can understand why these children’s parents would be upset! There is nothing wrong with the usual just lecturing about slavery…clearly.
This Friday marks the end of Week Four of graduate school. It’s been a full month since I had TA training. Phew!
Life is good. If not hectic and crazy. Some general observations: Since I have an MA, my initial gut reaction is to compare my two experiences. However, I realize they don’t compare. Sure the seminar experience is similar. But in a way with my MA I jumped into research very fast. I had a research paper to write almost immediately. Then, of course, we were writing our theses our second year then done. Here, I am not supposed to ponder the dissertation until after the comprehensive exams. Of course, we all know that doesn’t happen. I’m talking about dissertation ideas all of the time with possible advisors and other students.
I also keep having this odd feeling of being unsettled. I am in a unique situation where I may have two advisors. I am drawn to writing about religion in the 19th and 20th centuries. Part of me feels like I should write about the 19th century. However, I am some ideas that would include both. SOme of my other peers already have advisors. Some don’t. I need to realize its ok. It’s been good that I have been meeting with several professors. I will have it figured out soon enough. I just need to “follow my heart.”
Work-discipline. Ahhh I have been getting the work done. But I’ve learned some hard lesson about the me four years ago and the me now. I need sleep. I know there will be sleepless nights in the future but when I can sleep I am sleeping. I have never been the type of person to get up and get to work. Um I have to now. This means reading by 10 AM on the mornings I don’t have anywhere else to be. I will be shooting for earlier as the semester rolls on. yeah and this means going to bed earlier…:(
I have banned myself from facebook. I have signed onto it on my blackberry but you can’t navigate it well. I don’t have facebook application for blackberries which is good. I have also cut myself off of other bloggingish sites that eat up time. I do visit my bloglines staples. It turns out I don’t need facebook to waste time on the web. When i find myself downloading music for my cats, we know I need to point my attention elsewhere. HA!
The teaching. I won’t talk about that in depth on this open forum. But it is a LOT OF WORK. So far I have taught sixteen section in all. Four a week for four weeks. I have to say one of my groups is pretty talkative and into the material which makes for a fast and fun session.
OK back to writing about the Puritans!
all the changed lately.
Last week consisted of A LOT:
- Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was TA training (a bit repetitive and obvious from time to time)
- Thursday I had two doctor’s appointments.
- Friday I met with the professor I am TA’ing for
- Saturday I had my department orientation
Today, I slept in and took a nap. Yep. That’s about it.
My first class is at 4 tomorrow. Here we go!
Well, I officially no longer live in New York City and now live in Michigan. The reasons for not blogging can be fit into several categories:
(1) Unstable internet
(2) Never ending home improvement projects
(3) Unpacking
(4) Family issues
(5) Grad school preparation
(6) Working on an essay for possible publication
However, when I look at my list I am reminded of how much we haven’t gotten done. Sure, we have gotten a lot done like painting our living room and hallway but the kitchen remains unpacked as does other parts of the house (RE: my office eek!). It feels like some chore or home improvement is standing in the way of getting stuff done. So what do we do? Pack up the car and the kitties and drive up north to stay in my parents’ cottage. We’re in vacationland now. It’s nice to be here but also busy. We’re here when everyone else in downstate Michigan is. I am quickly learning the geographical politics of my new state.
What to blog about then? Well, items one through four are either commonplace or too personal for this space. So items five and six…
Grad School Preparation:
I have done zero to nothing for this category. I wanted to take July by storm with reading and so far that hasn’t happened. We were coming up to vacationland yesterday and I could not find the box of books I need/want to read. We had in the van we drove to Michigan from New York City in. But I COULD NOT find it. Gah. So I grabbed a bunch of other books that will be helpful to read. Hopefully, when I return to the house I will find that box. Of course, I didn’t write down all the books I had in that box because why would that make sense? Grr.
Also, I need to write some emails to professors, the DGS, and potential advisors to tell them I have moved to Michigan and am ready to start school in less than five weeks. I don’t know what is keeping me from writing these emails? Am I scared? Just distracted? Probably because I have no desk set up in our house yet. I do have a room of my own but so much to do to it before I can really use it. I have to paint it and then file all of my files in a way that makes complete sense.
Working on an essay for possible publication:
In late June, I was approached to contribute to a collection about soap operas today. My initial hesitation was that I didn’t know if I had enough time. But I decided to do it anyway. Soap opera research is my pet project. I intend on writing a book about Soap Operas as a indicator of essential/key Historical Events after I write a book or two first about religion and gender.
The article I am writing about is the current state of race on daytime television. Clearly that’s a broad topic but I am focusing on a particular set of characters, Angie and Jesse on All My Children.
One task I had to do was to watch some footage of recent storylines on youtube. This was hard to do without Internet for a while. So I sat in starbucks with earplugs in watching all of these scenes. Of course, I found them interesting from a racial standpoint but also it seemed a bit old fashioned, especially the scenes when Angie and Jesse get remarried.
“A man is born, a woman is born for him.”
Here is the link because my blog won’t let me load a video…wha!
I was struck most by the poem about woman being made for man. I guess I forgot how patriarchal soap operas are.
The paper is coming along so far. Its progress will be interrupted by a weekend of fun on Beaver Island where I can indulge in my real passion…early offshoot Mormon groups.
In the next week of having some solitude and relaxation away from unpacking and home improvements, I will sink my teeth into some good stuff like reviewing Simone de Beauvoir (How I love her!) which is always worth it to do.
So items one through four deserve further explanation but until then I am focusing on me!
The Bonds of Womanhood by Nancy Cott. I did read the part on education during my sophomore year for a research paper. I am glad I did read the whole study as it is one of those imperative books that should be read for someone doing gender history
and/or gender theory.
Here is one new thing I learned: Imagery of women in the Christian Church changed dramatically from the late 18th century to the early 19th century. Women were usually portrayed in the image of “Eve” as temptresses, not to be trusted. However, preachers, reverends, and ministers soon turned to casting women as more benevolent participants within their practice as Christians. They turned away from depictions of Eve and turned to other, more complimentary, positive portrayals of women from the Bible to persuade female congregation and general Church member to lead an exemplary (Christian) life.
INTERESTING! A point worth more investigation from my end.
idea maybe?
I think about dissertation ideas all the time. I think this is probably normal for those of us who desperately want and know they need to go to grad school for whatever subject. My goal has been to read a ton of books. I just finished Women, Family, and Utopia: Communal Experiments of the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and the Mormons. I was intrigued by the connections between the Shakers, Oneida Community and Mormons. But it wasn’t until the last the conclusion that I read something that got me thinking (again) about dissertation ideas.
The author Lawrence Foster made the assertion that Mormon literature during the Victorian era was much more Victorian in nature than the actual “Victorians.” This reminded me of an idea I had to trace the history of the Anti Mormon (aka anti polygamy) movement of the last part of the nineteenth century. As far as I can tell, there has not been a comprehensive study on this so far. The time is definitely ripe for such a study.
Of course, I am not sold completely on this idea. But it does have something to it. I know I will probably be completing research on gender and religions in the later part of the nineteenth century. This is the first time in awhile I’ve had such a revelation (yes to use a “Mormon” word) toward my future research. I am going to start seeing what this could possibly entail. I am very excited to have an idea that may have something to it.
But first I have to get through
OK, this is a list of books I own that I want (need) to read before August. There are a few themes going on here: books by faculty I will be studying under, topics I want to explore, communities defined by culture, and then religion and religious communities.
A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada by Mark A. Noll
Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City by Arlene Davila
Cultures in Babylon: Black Britain and African America by Hazel V. Carby
Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896 by David L. Bigler
Indian Women and French Men by Susan Sleeper-Smith
Learning from the Left: Children’s Literature, the Cold War, and Radical Politics in the United States by Julie L. Mickenberg
Methodism and the Southern Mind by Cynthia Lyerly
Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective edited by Maureen Ursenback Beecher and Lavine Fielding Anderson
The Second Goldrush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II by Marilynn S. Johnson
The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture by Neil Foley
Women, Family, and Utopia: Communal Experiments of the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and the Mormons by Lawrence Foster
Next up:
Books I have read that I should review
Books that every graduate student MUST read before they begin US History…like I can really read all of these but I will try. I am thinking books that summarizes time periods using gender, race and class as major categories of analyses.
Ambitious much?