Put the Motive in Motivation!!

I have been trying to find decent motivation for and attention to my work for the better part of this year. After I advanced to candidacy, I pretty much went on brain freeze. Oh sure, I had two good weeks right after advancing where I was all EXCITED and shit… but now I feel like I’m dragging my ass to the books, taping my eyelids open only to discover that at the end of the day, I’ve managed to half-heartedly read a chapter of something instead of finishing the book I meant to finish.

The isolation is getting to me. I think I need to plan more lunches or coffees – something to force a schedule, someone to be accountable to. “Did you finish those books you were reading”

Ultimately, I have to find the motive to motivate myself. WHY IN THE HELL AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF?

I know the reasons: I love what I do. I read and think and talk about it for a living. I am actually committed to the idea of public higher education, to education at the undergrad – lower division, even – level. As I said before, I really do believe that my research has value and part of that value is my teaching… SO

GET OFF YOUR ASS, GET A COFFEE AND GET TO WORK!!

I just requested summer teaching, so maybe I’ll get to test out all my fucking brilliant teaching skills and ideas and come up with the perfect survey course.

Some more meaningful bogging is in the works, I just want to get through some work first. *sigh*

On Being Busy

It has certainly been a while since I last posted around here, and I wish that wasn’t the case. Here’s a brief update:

1. I got engaged in August. Long story short, he asked me “How’s next summer?” We’re getting married next summer back in Home County and are very excited, but a little bit stressed about the planning.

2. I love-hate my boobs. They’re enormous, but the Rack of Doom (thanks Kate Harding for this term) just doesn’t fit in and stupid store bought dress, and frankly, neither does my fat ass. Why? Because apparently fat girls don’t get to shop off the rack – and I am totally not about to put half down (non-refundable) to order a dress is a size I haven’t tried on. So I’m considering dressmakers.

3. As a result, dissertation research is going slow. I had hoped to have a chapter done by now and I don’t. Boooo!

4. My (university owned) apartment has a water leak in one of the closets, and termites in the ceiling trusses – or maybe HAD – the termite guy is coming today.

5. I once worked as a nanny for a Jewish family and had a discussion with the father about the smashing of a glass at a Jewish wedding. M- said almost nonchalantly that it served as a reminder of the destruction of the Temple and earthly suffering, and as a reminder to participate in Tikkun Olam, the healing or mending of the world. I like  these explanations, and as my dissertation is largely about the destruction of the Temple, I am considering adding this to our ceremony. I am not sure how my fiance will react to this proposition.

(NB although I am a scholar of religion, and even to a certain extent, of ancient Judaism, I am not actually familiar with the development of this tradition.)

6. I am struggling with another fellowship application. I’m trying to abstract my diss to 200 words (!!) THAT’S NOT FAIR and I’m trying to find the most eloquent way to express the relevance of my project to the study of religious values (which has not been required of any other application I’ve submitted so far).  **sigh**

7. In the event that any readers of In the Pink have clicked here after reading my comments, Hello!

And with, that, I’ll leave you again, until I have something more substantial to say.

OH.

8. PUBLIC OPTION NOW! Either it’s a moral imperative to provide health care to everyone, or it isn’t. I think it is.

9. Watch Zombieland!! If you’re lucky, it might still be out in theaters, but you might have to Netflix it

10. Also, Roman Polanski is an as ass nugget who deserves to be prosecuted.

Why be an academic asshole?

I found a stupid article* by a stupid scholar* about what I was planning on writing in my stupid dissertation. “SHITFUCK,” was, I believe, my actual response. And yes, it actually does generally what I was going to do in chapter 3. The good news is, (1) I haven’t actually started writing, (2) it’s a pretty good article, (3) it doesn’t have the same scope that my chapter will have, and (4) now I don’t have to do the work that she did, and I can build on it instead. In the end, I think I spent about 2 hours in a state of panic & fear, and then I realized that it’s really ok – in fact, it’s probably good for me to have someone who has published well-articulated thoughts that I can respond to and build on.

One colleague, another grad student, said, “It’s ok. Just find what she did wrong and tear her up.”

I personally find the idea that everyone else is wrong and must be destroyed to be disgusting and horrible and counter-productive to scholarly conversation in the humanities. In my area of studies, it’s totally possible to have different, but equally plausible interpretations or explanations of the primary source materials (the data). I prefer to think of scholarship as collaborative rather than competitive, as building and improving on the work other scholars have done, and as a discussion. I think setting out to “prove someone wrong” or “tear someone up” is unnecessarily combative. 

Jacob Neusner, for example, was out of line, unprofessional and downright mean in his review of Shaye Cohen’s book The Beginnings of Jewishness. I won’t even bother citing the review, because it was largely an ad-hominem attack of a younger scholar by a famous and important older scholar. Neusner’s review did not impress me at all. It made me think he’s unprofessional and mean. It did not make me want to read more of Neusner’s work. It did not make me want to talk to him. It caused me lose almost all respect for the man, as a scholar and a human being. To be fair, I have never met Jacob Neusner, and I’ve certainly not read all of his books, and he has made some very important contributions to scholarship.

Likewise, I am not impressed by in-person attacks at professional conferences. It just makes the attacker look like an asshole. In short: there are respectful and professional ways to speak to and about the work of other scholars while challenging, critiquing and even disagreeing with or disproving their conclusions or methods. It is simply unnecessary and unprofessional to be an asshole.

*where “stupid articele” means “a pretty good article about my own topic, therefore I hate it for no good reason” and “stupid scholar” means “a well-respected scholar who writes well about what I wanted to write about and therefore I hate her for no good reason”