Professor X and Student Z: A Weird Academic Discourse, Or, A Very UnEnlightened Exchange

Oh Noble Reader! Please know that of what follows: All is true. For the mind yet unsullied by graduate school and the lice-ridden Underbelly of the Academy, read no further, lest your Purest Humanity be corrupted by this all-too faithful depiction of Vice and Cruelty. If, Dear Reader, you have already Fallen into that deep abyss of Highest Education, continue on, and heed not the Example of Professor X.

***

Dear Professor X,

I am eager to schedule the exam for which I have been preparing these several months. I propose date A or date B; please let me know if either of these are amenable.

Best Wishes,

Student Z

***

Dear Student Z,

Exam? Please visit my office so that I can evaluate your level of preparation. Because you have failed to email me as often as I had anticipated, and because I set expectations about your email communications and still chose not to communicate those expectations to you, I had assumed you had left the university.

Best,

Professor X

***

Dear Professor X,

Please accept my sincere apologies for failing to adhere to your expectations for email communication. I have been in contact with Professor B, who I assumed was also in contact with you. It seems like we both made some incorrect assumptions! Wait, you assumed that I had dropped out of school? I find it insulting that you assumed that I had abdicated my responsibilities, rather than assuming that I had my nose buried in books, and that I was focused on my studies. Also, I can't believe that you would assume that I had dropped out of school, and that you made no effort to find out why or if you could help get me back on track. Please do not be offended, but I am not entirely sure that you are human. Or at least not human in the way that other humans might recognize.

Sincerely and apologetically,

Student Z

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Dear Student Z,

You are insulted? I don't see that you have a right to be pissed at me. I am the one who has a right to be pissed. You did not conform to my secret email standards. I do not understand your approach to graduate school. This is very serious business. I'll have you know that people speak very highly of me. Very highly. I work with lots of people. I do not understand why you think that you have a right to have feelings. Furthermore, I do not understand your suggestion that I am inhuman. What am I, a computer? I will have you know that people speak very highly of me.

Agitatedly,

Professor X

***

Dear Professor X,

Nevermind that I am not pissed and that you are putting words in my mouth. Disappointed and confused? Certainly. May I please implore you to, once again, accept my sincerest apology and inquire how I might mend the situation. I do not intend to fight with you about this. I also speak very highly of you. [Thinking: I also feel somewhat sorry for you, if a lowly graduate student such as myself can offend you to such a degree. I am sorry that you studied at University D with Professor J, and that you will probably never reach his level of notoriety. It is clear that you care greatly about your reputation. I am sorry that providing pragmatic and useful guidance to your students is a task that seems to be beneath you. I am sorry that we are misunderstanding each other so completely.]

Best Wishes,

Student Z

PS Can I please schedule my exam, so that I can get on with my research?

Melancholia Part I: A Response to David Edelstein, Or, How Do You View a Film?

In December 2011, all manner of "Best of 2011" lists appeared. I took note of the ten-best list that David Edelstein discussed with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, Thursday, December 22, 2011. He was talking about the year in film, and revisiting his own ten-best list.


You can find the transcript here.

"EDELSTEIN: On this very show, I described Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" as a masterly film. I think I called it a hateful masterpiece. And I'm not somebody who throws around words like that and then doesn't follow up on my 10-best list.

"I just couldn't - I put it down on my list, and I just couldn't do it. It is such a hateful film. It's a – it's the work of a nihilistic annihilist. For Lars von Trier, the world, when it ends, is, well-lost. Capitalism has poisoned it, and families are useless, and the heroine, the protagonist of the movie played by Kirsten Dunst, is so utterly hateful that she's really quite happy that everything is going to hell.

"And I guess I - when one chooses, you know, the things that one loves and one wants to recommend, how - it's a very difficult question: Can you love a film, can you recommend a film that highly that peddles a worldview that you find so utterly hateful, even poisonous? I don't know the answer to that. I struggled with it."

I think that David Edelstein puts his critical finger on a problem that has been plaguing readers (of all stripes) for a good long while. His review of Lars von Trier's Melancholia rests upon the ethical or moral disposition of the viewer. And he assumes, casting a broad ethical and moral net, that the end of the world--no matter how artfully it might be depicted--is disagreeable to the film's viewer. 

Melancholia may be a sad, bleak, fated, and morbid film. But to call it "hateful" is simply naïve.  The approaching planet of Melancholia, like Justine (Kirstin Dunst), we should read as human mortality in its most unadorned form. Ultimately, neither human, nor animal, nor golf cart will cross the bridge beyond the film's private golf course and escape into the seeming sanctuary of the never-seen village. The question posed by the film, however, is: How shall we react to all of this? With numb depression and nihilism? With crippling anxiety? With a wishful optimism followed by suicide? With fantasy? Each character poses his or her own possible response to the approaching planet Melancholia, and it is up to the viewer to chose his or her own point of identification.

Stay tuned for part 2 to see how I read this film in a less "hateful" light than David Edelstein.

The New Weird is Dead, Long Live the New Weird!

An Open Letter to 2011:

What happens to a year on December 31? On January 1? Does anything ever really begin and end there?

So dear 2011, you, who I have affectionately christened "The New Weird," come to an end. My Big Lebowski calendar has been replaced by one called Magnificent Specimens, which features photographs of eccentric men's facial hair to last for the next twelve months. But what sort of ending is this anyway? While the calendar marks a certain transition, others might be harder to detect. In my mind, New Weird, you are not so much a period of time, but a state of being. You are an embracing of art, a willingness to ask the unasked questions, and a glancing sideways at the world around you. So on this new year, I wish The New Weird a happy birthday, and look forward to your second chapter. Hopefully one of many to come.

My friend Ben Trumbo has already given your second phase some marching orders. New Weird, now you have an official slogan: "2012: Freaky Awesome!" And also a motto: "Suck it up and party." Interpret these however you will. But whatever your interpretation, Happy New Year, Happy New Weird, and may we all revel in your freaky awesome weirdness!

Photo courtesy of Ben Trumbo (2011).

Click here to check out some more of his freaky awesome work.

Technicolor Space Boobs Redux (My Weird Holiday Gift To You)

December is . . . the season for technicolor space boobs!!!

And no matter which December holidays you celebrate (or don't), I believe that decorating one's living space with a bunch of crazy colored twinkle lights makes the world a better place. I mean, it can't really hurt, right? Apart from the increased electric bill and the impending doom of the planet due to fossil fuel induced global warming. But that's where LEDs come in. These strings of light emitting diodes not only use less electricity than conventional xmas lights, they contribute a whole new kind of weird to the holidays. Behold...

Last year marked my induction into the LED xmas light fan club, when I discovered that the Home Depot brand lights cast crazy colored circles all over the place. This year, in addition to the tree, the technicolor space boobs have also colonized my front porch in the form of icicle lights. I attempted to capture their glory in video form, but it was unsuccessful. Maybe this time next year I will have learned how to take a decent movie of my beloved lights. In the meantime, here's a video of someone else's totally insane exterior light display. Happy Weird Holidays!! 

Reminder: Parabola Art Exhibit Today and Tomorrow!

Parabola Wash U grad student art exhibit opens tonight at 6pm, runs until Saturday 12/3 at 6pm: Des Lee Gallery, 1627 Washington Ave., St. Louis, MO. http://desleegallery.com/ Check it out if you're in town.

Recognition! or, The Utterly Naïve "Artist"

Now this is really weird: On December 2, 2011 I will be participating in my first art show at a gallery. One of my collages has been selected for display in a graduate student art show at Washington University in St. Louis. Here is some more information about the show. It is open on December 3 as well.

If you are in St. Louis that weekend, please stop by and see me performing the role of "artist." I am still not sure what this word means, or whether I can be comfortable self-applying it. But I am choosing not to worry about that right now. If you cannot be in St. Louis that weekend (and I can think of no reason why you wouldn't), you can see the piece that will be on display below, along with the explanatory blurb I composed about it for the occasion.

“Your Beautiful Exploding Cerebrum”

            The human cerebrum: home of language, sensory perception, memory and knowledge. As a student and instructor of literature, my work seeks to engage these critical areas as they have been expressed in language across time and culture. My research asks the question: How does literary fiction represent and embody the operations of the human mind, including memory and the imagination? My work analyzes twentieth-century novels written in English and French, which trace a narrative of Transatlantic travels and find the Caribbean as a point of convergence. 

            In “Your Beautiful Exploding Cerebrum,” Caribbean corals mimic the intricate folds of the human brain. Books glow with the illuminating power of the island sun, and also form an arm from which a rebellious hand emerges. A woman expresses her mission: “Freedom Thru Books Not Murder,” an appeal to language, art, and reason over hate and violence.

In a period of history possessed by international terrorism and economic disaster, the study of literature might seem to be a frivolous, academic indulgence. However, the novels I study—primarily written by members of the African diaspora—show us that literature, artistic expression, and the life of the mind each plays a role in the quest for liberty, self-determination, and social harmony. These concerns also lie at the core of the university’s educational mission. I ask my undergraduate students to engage literature as a way to productively “explode” their own cerebrums, in order to better understand the way that we all interact with language and thought on a daily basis.

Collagista

First of all, I know I've been neglecting my lovely blog lately.  But rest assured that there is some major weird in the works, and that I'll be able to report on it soon.  In the meantime, I've put off telling you about my new hobby long enough.

In January, at the birth of The New Weird, I started tinkering with papers and glues, and have been making collages ever since.  My technique is still pretty poor, but I'd like to think that my composition has improved somewhat in the past seven months.  For someone who has (as of yet) shown very little aptitude in the visual arts, this is a weird and fun adventure.  And the images that I'm creating are very weird indeed.  Here are some that I've completed in the past month:

Fidelity in the Age of Digital Self-Reproduction

Collage of magazines and crêpe paper

 Your Beautiful Exploding Cerebrum

Collage of magazines and cocktail parasols

  Hungry Eyes Part 2

Collage of magazines

I like to work in materials that I find in magazines.  They tend to carry a potent graphic punch, and (as you've no doubt already detected) I have little patience for subtlety.  I find idealized or stylized images of the human body to be especially interesting.  These get very weird indeed when you mess them up a bit.  There is probably some critique of some gender/consumer something in these works, but I have to admit that I prefer to leave my analytical hat in the intellectual hat box while creating and considering these collages.  For once, I will leave the interpretation up to others, preferring to bask in the unbridled weirdness that results from the simple combination of papers and glues.

If you'd like to see some more of my collage work, you can find it here.