Dancer Nous Trois (correction hoped for)

While conscious that too many of the posts originate from me, I am grateful to KP that at least I no longer can claim the longest post.

To take up the spirit of KP’s last post (but not to respond to it, for which I would like to wait a bit both for clarification and for creating some space) I want to say what is at stake for me in this project. My concerns can be described as aesthetic, relational/pedagogic, and political (political neither in the explicit or implicit sense but something in between.).

1. Aesthetic: What brought me to the dance of academic pursuits is an outrage I felt and feel at the condition of the world. Politics brought me to the dance. But while at the dance I have been dancing with a new partner – oddly enough my old traveling partner seems mostly not to be jealous because as a trio each of us has become a more intimate and better dancer. Once at the dance itself, I was and am amazed at how complex, nuanced, mysterious, and fully alive the world is. When I learn about each of your lives, I feel not only that I come to know the world better, but I am also awed by the concrete details through which abstractions come alive. To paraphrase Trouillot, the sources of my/our study are ALIVE.

This awe has become the primary and dominant desire I seem to seek to fill in this project. And it explains partially why I am partially and momentarily frustrated with what I take to be xaf’s (temporary?) evacuation from the field of autobiography as a primary living source. If I/we lose him, we lose a part of our living archive and a part of ourselves.

2. Relational/pedagogic: After my proposal defense I had a full year of writer’s block before getting on with the dissertation writing. The block was coupled with other issues having to do with the health of various family members – my brother had attempted to take his life at about the same time, for example. Nevertheless, my family’s health was not, I think, the sufficient cause for my block. Rather, I think it had to do with having fallen for my new partner at the dance (awe of nuance and complexity) and forgetting who brought me to the dance and why I came.

The professionalizing aspect of graduate school is alienating, isn’t it? So alienating that the body rejects it and resists it. The body demands an acknowledgement of the political aspects of the academic dancing. So it blocks any easy continuation into awe for awe’s sake, professionalization as its own end. What struck me as a paralysis was really a sign of health!

When I was sitting on dissertation committees at Syracuse (19 of them), part of my unselfconscious plan was to make sure that the tension and balance between awe and politics/ethics was sustained rather than purged. Mostly faculty mentors acted out professionalization and therefore alienation. As an antidote, I asked students to answer in written form the following question: “What is in it for you in all this?” The posing of the question and the student’s effort to answer it had many positive consequences (and sometimes not so positive) of which one was that it led, or rather often led, to an “unblocking,” a “de-alienation” and a partial return to a balance that comes from the “dance-a-trios.” (Why shouldn’t I have a bit of fun writing this, yes?)

I no longer have graduate students. But when I meet them (and anyone whom might not smite me merely for asking) at gigs or at conferences, I feel a certain desire not only to get to know them but also to pose my question. Or, getting to know them through my question. I don’t think I was trying to perform a service or a mission. Rather, I am moved to ask the question on behalf of both my dancing partners – outrage and awe; politics and infinite curiosity.

Sometimes the question stumps people (for a while). When this happens I feel no remorse for my role in this part of their “stuck-ness.” On the contrary a partial paralysis in the face of this question seems a good thing to me. (For more on this please refer to my tape #14 C, take 9 – “on the use and abuse of the surpluses generated by capitalism at universities.”)

3. Political:

A) I noticed years ago that the “white” students would sail through graduate school while the “brown” and sometimes the “women” students would often have blocks. I took this to be systematic and structural. When this pattern seemed to repeat itself at our second panel in S.D.– whites supporting agency and contingency, others supporting determinacy -- again I took this to be systematic and structural. Both my dance partners are keen to explore this bifurcation – I am keen on it both politically and aesthetically.

B) Part of my politics is about solidarity. I want to be part of community of people who can love/support each other and engage in these issues.

I want to end here for the moment. The overlap between our needs doesn’t have to total for us to engage each other, yes? But it might be worth it to know if there is an overlap and what constitutes it.