V-Day

A lot of things could be written about Valentine’s Day; I’ll skip the obvious.

As I am almost positive that the recipient of my valentine’s gift will not see this, I’ll confess that I’ve done the cliche thing to do this year: I’ve purchased a copy of My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, a collection of love stories edited by Jeffrey Eugenides .

While proceeds benefit 826 Chicago, I am generally a fan of Jeffrey Eugenides’ work, and I’m in a relationship with someone looking to renew their literary interests, it’s really the inclusion of Robert Musil’s Tonka that convinced me to make the purchase. Since reading Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless (Translated as The Confusions of Young Torless, The Confusions of the Young Cadet Torless and Young Torless) in an existentialism course as an undergraduate, I have been a huge fan of Musil. Reading Tonka again has made me commit to FINALLY finishing Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities).

Eugenides’ introduction is what you would expect: literary, thoughtful and humorous. While I like the distinction he makes between love and love story, the introduction and the stories included all boil down, for me, to what my grandmother told me about romantic relationships: “it’s always a form of insanity.”

So, in my particular state of insanity, with Valentine’s Day approaching yet again, and a tryst already penciled in for the 12th, it makes sense to re-read favorite stories, ponder and annotate them, and, finally, share the insanity.

Anthropology and the Modern World…?

I am revisiting Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World, over the next couple of days while reading Robinson Crusoe for Dr. Kristin Bluemel’s class on The Novel in English.

In particular, I plan to consider Trouillot’s first chapter, “Anthropology and the Savage Slot: The Poetics and Politics of Otherness.” In this chapter Troillot himself creates a pretty convincing narrative regarding the construction of the savage slot within “Western” Imperialism, how that slot was imagined and portrayed in literature (ahem… Robinson Crusoe), and finally how the discipline of anthropology later emerged as a “A Discipline for the Savage” and was institutionalized, along with many social sciences, as part of a nationalist project.

Of course, the basics of this argument seem old hat by now. And certainly there are striking parallels with the narrative of the “The Rise of English” that Terry Eagleton provides, but I hope that pairing Trouillot with Crusoe will illuminate my understanding of the development of the novel form specifically. Trouillot discusses literary content, but not form, while making essentially the same comparisons between literature and philosophy that Ian Watt does in The Rise of the Novel, but perhaps I can go in a slightly different direction by considering the “cultural” aspects of imperialism that Watt largely neglects and the form of the novel, which Trouillot is, of course, not addressing.

Stoddard Call For Papers

Dr. Lisa Vetere and I are organizing the Elizabeth Stoddard Society Panel for the 2008 American Literature Association conference. The Call for Papers for this panel is now posted at the Penn CFP site.

Yes, I am reading things not related to Elizabeth Stoddard

I have just received and am very excited to read Ruth Behar ’s most recent book, An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba.

Author Bio

After Castro’s rise to power in 1959, four-year-old Ruth Behar and her family left Cuba, along with most of the island’s other Jews. But even as a child Behar felt the pull of her native country and wondered what happened to the Jews who had remained. In her latest book, An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba, the noted anthropologist, writer, and documentary film-maker recounts her journey back to Cuba and the Jewish communities she discovers there. Behar’s other books include Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story and The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart. She has also published essays, poetry, and short fiction; her documentary Adio Kerida/Goodbye Dear Love: A Cuban Sephardic Journey, has been shown all over the world. Behar is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and the recipient of fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Online Stoddard Texts

Elizabeth Stoddard’s 1861 novel The Morgesons can be found at Project Gutenberg. Other works by Elizabeth Stoddard on Project Gutenberg include Lemourne Versus Huell and Poems.

Stoddard’s 1865 novel Two Men can be downloaded at Google Books

Although I know that the University of Michigan has Stoddard’s 1867 novel Temple House on microfilm, I have not found it online yet.

Old Poem, New Day

I believe that I wrote this poem in Ken Mikolowski’s poetry workshop at the Residential College back in the “good old days.”

 

She who seldom wore make-up still did not.

 	On the occasion that she would, the application was wrought

 	of sheer boredom, and the substance borrowed from her roommate.

She who shared the room with she would seldom wore make-up used the substance daily.

   	Not because she was vain and not because she was not beautiful.

        More so as if playing dress up as a child. No matter how old you become,

        the substance is always your mother's.

She would seldom wore make-up has a mother.

She who is the mother of she who seldom wore make-up had her ways of making

  	she would seldom wore make-up fear the substance.

She who was the mother of she who seldom wore make-up had somehow convinced

  	she who seldom wore make-up that the substance would only exaggerate all

	she who seldom wore make-up always already tried not to see.

She who was the mother of she who seldom wore make-up and she who seldom wore

        make-up never spoke of such things as substance and therefore any and all esteem

        lacks in she the mother of she who seldom wore make-up and myself.

The main thing that amuses me about this poem right now is that I don’t think there is anyway to satisfactorily improve its grammar.

Here we go…

Once I explore this further, I will begin posting on my thesis research on 19th century American writer Elizabeth Stoddard, other graduate work, conferences and presentations, poetry, fiction, etc.