Greetings! Over the past weekend, I jetted to an island other than Paradise for an academic conference. It was my good fortune to be on a panel with academic blogging true believers. Historiann exchanged her rusty spurs for a series of fabulous sun dresses; Tenured Radical rabble roused among the virtual; the Madwoman with a Laptop proved once and for all that her authorial prowess was not dependent on channeling a dead canine; and the Woman Formally Known as Goose (WFKG) served as the most delightful of mistresses of ceremonies. The panel, in other words, was filled with the cool.
It came at the right moment for me – and, let’s be honest, it’s always about me in the end. I had been wondering for quite a bit of time what CoG’s future might be. It has been a bit like CoG was my child. Only ze dropped out of college and has been holding up in my basement sneaking joints and watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory. My participation forced CoG into the light of day and to rejoin society. It also marked a new step for this ol’ blog. It meant that I relinquished the last vestiges of pseudonymity and “owned” it professionally. For the first time something related to the blog will appear on my c.v. Here is an image from our panel:
I'll leave it to you to figure out which one of the others wore the silver jumpsuit. *cough* TR *cough*
I had to think hard about whether to let go of my Diana Prince alter ego. With Cheetah and Giganta on the prowl, one can never be too careful. Over time, however, my pseudonym had become harder and harder to maintain. The blog occupied an uncertain place as more people came to know of it. At some point, it became awkward that half of my friends knew of the blog and half did not. So, too, I always wondered if any academics at my usual conferences ever stumbled upon CoG. I felt like I was in the blogging closet and all my star-spangled panties were hanging around me.
As it turns out, my anonymity could be purchased for a price. That price was a trip to an island with tremendous historical significance for Spanish and U.S. imperialism. Or maybe, even more cheaply, I was lured by the fact that the conference hotel promised Piña Coladas so good that Joan Crawford once proclaimed them more enjoyable than slapping Bette Davis in the face. On the latter I cannot say; however, having sampled the drink in question, I would say that if I were a Joan Crawford dragqueen, I would probably take the swing.* I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.
Let me tell you, too, that these blogging folks can be a persuasive crew. After a few drinks with Madwoman, TR, WFKG, and a delightful Yale postdoc, they convinced me to do things that I never imagined doing. No, not tequila shots via a congo line (although. . .). Rather, I opened a Twitter account.** Man, what did they put in those drinks?
All and all, the conference required me to ask just what have we been up to on this blog since 2005? Anonymously complaining about bad behavior in academia can be as fun as slapping Bette Davis in the face (Or so I am told). It becomes much harder to write about your colleagues’ shenanigans, though, if they have you in their RSS feed. So, what can academic blogs do other than pointing out our foibles?
I found myself disarmed that so many conference participants approached me through the weekend to say they were surprised that I was part of the“Digital Humanities.” So was I. Given that I am more than a bit dense, I had never contemplated that CoG was a version of that. It was a bit like finding out that I had secret skills as a dentist that I performed only while sleepwalking. Of course, to make that analogy work for CoG, it would be like finding out I was a dentist who left people with gaping, bleeding gums thanks to my less than skillful orthodontics.
The conference made me reminisce about when the little bloggy started. Then again, I have always been prone to nostalgia. I am a professional historian after all. My blog began at a pretty low point in my personal and professional life. The truly loyal readers out there will remember that many of the early posts conveyed self pitydeep bitterness my reflections on a remarkably acrimonious break up with somebody who was truth challenged. My tenuous (and not tenured) position in a poisonously contentious department in the middle of TexAss only compounded those woes. From its start, then, the blog always had a certain messiness that blurred the personal and professional in ways that did not make me as wise as Athena. Well, if the blog’s author is a bit of mess, why wouldn’t the blog be one too? The blog became really important to me to combat the personal and professional isolation that I felt in East Texas. I did not have many other gay folks with whom to hang or other Chicano/a historians with whom to chat. Thank the goddess that those times have past. I will always remember, though, and be really grateful for the generosity of bloggers like Helen the Felon, Dorian, Joe.My.God, Tornwordo, VUBOQ, and others who reached out through cold dark cyberspace to be kind. Some are now famous, some faded. Whatever the case, I’m not sure I ever properly thanked them.
Thinking about the blog and hanging out with cool bloggeres reminded me that I still love the genre after all these years. Blogging offers tantalizing opportunities for us to write frankly about things that we see transpiring both in our immediate contexts and in the larger media. That type of writing does not necessarily align with my professional publishing trajectory as a nineteenth-century historian, but it sure is fun. So much so, I just might dust off those old comic books once more. . .
* For the record, GayProf does not endorse such violence.
** For the record, Historiann does not endorse the tweeting.
Some weeks ago the gentleman beau and I decided to take advantage of the sizzling merciless soul killing heat summer weather by taking a leisurely canoe ride. Doesn't that sound nice? After slathering ourselves in SPF-275 cream, we piled into a massive van of strangers to take the short ride to our launch point. Since we are both academic types, our conversation turned to online teaching as the van meander its way up the river. The gentleman beau has experience teaching online classes, but I do not. We both agreed nonetheless that online classes seem like bad news if one cares about quality education. We rehearsed the usual arguments against online courses: They reduce contact between professors and students; they reduce contact between students and students; they are often less rigorous; students are frequently left directionless and rarely put forward as much effort as a brick-and-mortar class; they compete with World of Warcraft for a student's attention; parents hate them and feel they are a “cheat” by the university. We hardly came up with novel critiques in other words. In that heat, one can’t expect me to be at my best. Just about the time that I began the inevitable claim that online classes were a harbinger of the pending demise of higher education as we know it, the stranger seated in front of me turned with daggers in her eyes. “I did my degree with many on-line classes,” she said curtly, “And they were really hard.” For a split second I swear that I could feel a slight tinge in a blood vessel in my brain as she attempted to telepathically explode my head.
Now this encounter took me back a bit and not just because I imagined that she hoped to spread my gray matter across the interior of the van. First, I don’t like to out-and-out insult people in public. That’s why I have this blog – I like to insult people virtually. Second, it dawned on me that my stance on online classes belied my status working for an elite institution.
Most professors and parents continue to consider online classes dubious at best (even those who actually teach them). Up until this point, taking a majority of online course work made one’s degree seem like a modern day correspondence course. Only you didn't have to draw the image on the back of the matchbook first. Despite this, two constituent groups really love the online courses: students and administrators. If they had their way, every university would have more of an online presence than a closeted Republican member of the House of Representatives looking to get laid. What? This ain’t a blog for children.
The stark reality is that most colleges and universities are exponentially increasing their online offerings. Cluck-clucking about it as a moral crisis might be easy (and fun too!), but it will not reverse the trend. Those who followed the recent showdown between the President of the University of Virginia and its governing board know that the latter felt the former moved too slowly in promoting online classes. If one of the original “public ivies” is about to cave into this pressure we should acknowledge that online classes are to be with us for quite some time. The impulse is there for a number of reasons. First, online classes are economical. Without needing to find actual classroom space, online classes can be as large as possible while still using just a single faculty member (or, worse, a severely underpaid adjunct). Second, liberal arts colleges and small regional universities are feeling the pressure from for-profit universities. As Republican-controlled legislatures and governors slash budgets to state-supported higher education the need to compete for every tuition dollar is getting greater and greater. Small colleges and universities have no choice but to try and accommodate the impulses that drive students to for-profit institutions.
Anybody who has a penchant for late-night television has seen the ads for these shady institutions promising the ease of a college education without ever having to change out of your pajamas or put down the tub of Ben-and-Jerry’s. Those ads make taking online classes seem like a virtual slumber party complete with intellectual tickle fights. Given what my students show up wearing in my actual class, though, I am left wondering if that is a real difference. It is no wonder that students who have to work or tend to family duties would find such an avenue to a college degree appealing. They simply need the flexibility.
This is no longer a debate about whether universities should offer online classes. The question now is what type of standards we are going to expect from them. The truth is that there are some students in online classes, like my fellow canoeist, who have the necessary motivation and discipline to make such a degree meaningful. It is also true that online classes continue to have the presumption of being easier than brick-and-mortar classes. This, in part, likely generated the defensiveness to my critiques. Those two things have to be reconciled.
To my mind, humanities professors (including me) have been slow to accept the new reality. This is especially true for those of us who teach at elite institutions that have not started pushing faculty to offer at least some of their classes online – yet. No, I am not advising that we all run out and start posting online classes like a blog troll posts incendiary comments. Rather, I am thinking that we need to cede the question over whether online classes provide good/bad learning environments in favor of considering how online classes can be taught using good, ethical pedagogies. Even if we are not directly involved in teaching an online class, we are nonetheless training graduate students who are most likely going to land a job at an institution that will expect, if not require, them to apportion part of their teaching effort to online classes. It is our obligation to them and their future students to start to model ethical uses of new teaching technologies.
To that end, we need to first identify and reject the models that favor corporate profit over learning. I was recently horrified when an acquaintance of mine reported that the nearby university where he teaches had purchased “modules” from some unknown company. He, the instructor of the class, had almost no control over the content, assignments, or lectures of the class that he was “teaching.” Instead, he became a glorified tech operator and grader. This, it seems to me, is not why we hire individuals with unique specialities to teach classes.
The reverse must also be guarded against. Academic associations and unions should proactively fight administrative efforts to own online classes generated by faculty members. There is a distinct danger that once a professor pours concerted effort into creating a novel and interesting online class that the material will then be pimped out as the aforementioned “modules’ to other universities. Or, even locally, the adminstration should not be allowed to replace the allegedly expensive professor with a graduate student or underpaid adjunct who simply takes control of the web materials. The content and structure of a course should be considered a type of intellectual property that belongs to the instructor.
On the faculty side, if we are going to venture into new learning technologies, then we also need to bring with us the best practices that we now take for granted in the brick-and-mortar classroom. Over the past twenty years, for instance, flat out lecturing has come to be seen as one of the least valuable means for engaging students. So I am frequently surprised that much of the online content created for classes simply involves videotaped lectures that have been uploaded for students to watch. Trust me, unless those videos include skateboarding kittens or substantive out takes from Modern Family, the students are barely going to pay attention. Much as we now create exercises and assignments that have students proactively engaged and talking in brick-and-mortar classes, so too should we dump the prerecorded lecture in favor of things that get students engaged online. This might mean that we call upon individuals with programming and technical skills beyond the average humanities professor. One model that intrigued me, for instance, originated in Canada. Students attempted to “solve”some significant historic crimes from the Canadian past. In that instance, the online materials became part of a larger puzzle that students needed to piece together. Along the way, they happened to learn important cultural contexts that informed each crime (racial attitudes, gender assumptions, regional bias). Doesn’t that sound more interesting to you than downloading a 50 minute talking head rambling on about the Articles of Confederation? Creative technological innovations, of course, will require technological and staff investments from universities and colleges. It seems to me, though, given that these courses will ultimately generate more tuition dollars than a brick-and-mortar class, it is the least that they can do.
Don’t let the blog fool you, though. I am remarkably unsavvy when it comes to technology and probably don’t have the best imagination to tackle this problem. Nonetheless, I do think that the time has come when humanities professors have to engage online learning in a serious way. It’s not going anywhere. Our best bet is that we take control of the conversation to show the difference between a quality online learning experience and the hasty for-profit nonsense.
A few weeks ago, Dr. Crazy had a post about collegiality in academic departments. She suggested some pretty basic notions about how one should behave in such an environment. To crudely summarize, she suggests that collegiality involves no more than simply doing your job at its most basic level: teach, research, and serve to the best of one’s abilities as outlined in your contract.
I tend to agree with that assessment. Nonetheless, it strikes me that such a straightforward mandate still confuses many professors. So, allow me to provide a simple set of guidelines to help you gauge whether you are an ideal colleague or the professor everybody wishes would just die. Think about which of the following most closely resembles what you might say in these situations.
When it comes time to decide the course schedule for next semester:
Best: “I am willing to teach a mix of upper level and service-oriented courses. While I certainly have preferences about scheduling, I am willing to negotiated with my colleagues to insure that we have a wide distribution of classes throughout the day.”
Fair: “I have several courses that I teach over and over. They serve some basic requirements of the department.”
Bad: “I will only teach classes between the hours of nine and noon. Teaching a survey class is clearly beneath my intellectual talents. Besides, I have a political obligation to offer an incredibly narrow graduate course that only appeals to two students every year.”
Evil: “My class enrollment is by instructor permission only. That way I can make sure that only hot, fit students ever sign up. No fatties!”
When I take the last cup of coffee from the break room:
Best: “I always make a fresh pot of coffee for the next person.”
Fair: “I be sure to shut off the burner so that the whole office doesn’t fill with the smell of scorched coffee.”
Bad: “I demand the secretary make a new pot of coffee.”
When it comes to time for committee assignments to be made, I think:
Best: “Nobody likes service, but it is a necessary part of keeping any university operating. I will roll up my sleeves and serve on committees when needed.”
Good: “If I really care about a particular issue, I am willing to serve on a committee or two.”
Bad: “Gee, I would serve on some committees, but I think that my decision to have children means that I can neglect my basic duties for which I am paid. Selfish childless people can pick up my slack. After all, what else do they have to do with their empty lives?”
Evil: “I see every committee assignment as a stepping stone to be dean one day.”
My thinking about new hires is usually along the lines of:
Best: “I consider it a basic part of my job to advocate vigorously for new positions based on my particular intellectual training. Nonetheless, I also recognize that a diverse set of perspectives and coverage is required for a really solid academic department. Therefore, I am willing to yield on hiring decisions when other priorities are clear.”
Fair: “I will work really hard to hire people in my immediate field."
Bad: “If I didn’t get my way when a job position was conceived, I will do everything in my power to sabotage this search. It’s better to have a failed search than for other people to have won a new hire.”
Evil: “If a candidate wants this job, they better invite me to their hotel room during the campus visit.”
When Running a Meeting:
Best: “I have a clear agenda and will get you out of here in an hour.”
Fair: “The agenda is set, but everybody can speak their mind on whatever topic they desire. It’s fine with me if we have to spend the whole afternoon chatting.”
Bad: “Was there a meeting scheduled today?”
Evil: “Let me tell you what we already decided as a committee.”
When Attending a Meeting:
Best: “I did my due diligence and read any pre-circulated materials before I arrived. I listen attentively and will give my opinion based on a well reasoned argument about the best needs of the unit.”
Fair: “I didn’t really have time to read up on this particular issue. Still, I’ll go along with whatever the majority has to say.”
Bad: “I would have attended this meeting, but I needed to wash my cat.”
Evil: “I am only here to point out how much I really, really, really hate the chair of this meeting.”
When I find that I am in the minority on an issue facing the department:
Best: “I will voice my opinion and give my reasons for objecting. In the end, though, I must have faith in democracy.”
Fair: “I will withhold my opinion but then complain bitterly to colleagues over drinks later.”
Bad: “I take this decision very personally. It shows that there is a larger conspiracy at play to take away my power and agency!”
Evil: “I pack a gun.”
When advising students about what courses to take:
Best: “I emphasize the strengths of the department. I also take some time to consider the particular interests of the student and their own career ambitions. My goal is always to give a student the widest range of perspectives that we offer.”
Fair: “I am vaguely aware of what my colleagues teach, but, whatever. I guess that I wouldn’t actively dissuade a student from taking a class with another professor -- if that is what they really want to do.”
Bad: “I take the time to trash all the colleagues in my unit that I dislike. A student should leave my office knowing that my department is nothing but a snake pit of dissension filled with people who aren’t half as smart as I am.”
Evil: “I take the time to explain the power of the dark side of the force and invite the student to become my protégé. Together we can topple the department chair and rule together.”
When serving on a masters thesis or dissertation committee:
Best: “I read the entire thesis/dissertation. My goal is to provide strategies for the student to revise the work to the best of hir abilities.”
Fair: “I read the entire thesis/dissertation. My goal is to get this over with as soon as possible.”
Bad: “I read some of the thesis/dissertation. My goal is to show that I personally know a lot more about this particular topic than the student.”
Evil: “I plagiarized several chapters of this thesis/dissertation. Nonetheless, I will still vote to fail the student just because I can.”
During the summer:
Best: “I drink a lot.”
Fair: “I drink a lot.”
Bad: “I drink a lot.”
Evil: “I drink a lot.”
When a hardworking undergraduate student tells me that ze is applying for graduate school:
Best: “I am supportive and offer to write a letter. Still, I do provide a candid assessment of the job market and encourage the student to think about the time, energy, money and effort that goes into obtaining an advanced degree.”
Fair: “I write a letter of recommendation and wish the student well.”
Bad: “I write a letter of recommendation but also frighten the student with horror students about the academic world. I cite the Center of Gravitas as evidence of academia's moral bankruptcy.”
Evil: “I promise to write a letter of recommendation but never quite get around to it. I assure the student that, even if the job market is terrible, they will absolutely get a tenure-track job because they are the exception.”
When a colleague in my field publishes a book:
Best: “I buy and read it.”
Fair: “I send an e-mail of congratulations.”
Bad: “Do I have colleagues in my field?”
Evil: “I tell anyone who will listen that I would have written a much better version of that same book.”
When editing an academic journal:
Best: “My goal is to give authors clear and concise feedback as quickly as possible. No journal can accept everything submitted, but I work really hard to be fair and prompt. I understand that my authors often have tenure and/or promotion pressures. Any delay only harms their research agendas and makes my journal look unprofessional.”
Fair: “I farm out a lot of my duties and depend almost entirely on others’ opinions. Still, I aim for an initial turn around of six to eight weeks. After all, I have a basic competence in my job.”
Bad: “I decide that my journal will devote itself to publishing many, many ‘Special Editions’ so that I can reward all my friends by printing their articles. Others can submit manuscripts, but they really shouldn’t hold their breath.”
Evil: “I regularly sit on manuscripts for over a year and a half (or longer if I can!). When I do finally get around to making a decision, it’s usually a negative one. Heck, somebody has to teach these young scholars a cold hard lesson. If the author doesn’t like it, then they shouldn’t have bothered my prestigious journal with their pitiful article in the first place.”
My office:
Best: “Is a place where I work quietly.”
Fair: “Is a place where I meet students from time to time.”
Bad: “Is a place where I can really turn up the volume on my music.”
Evil: “Smells suspiciously of sulphur.”
When a colleague in my field comes up for tenure:
Best: “I diligently read as much of the file as possible. During the meeting, I aim to make sure that every candidate gets a fair hearing by offering well informed insights on the research, service, and teaching.”
Fair: “I read the cover letter to the file and dip in and out of the other materials. Unless there are clear problems, my default impulse is always to vote in favor of the candidate.”
Bad: “I didn’t really have time to read the file. I’ll go to the meeting and try to get a sense of which way the wind is blowing and then make up my mind.”
Evil: “I met with the candidate a full year before they went up for tenure to remind them that they needed my vote to advance. If they didn’t spend the past several months groveling, it’s curtains!”
The secretary/support staff in my unit:
Best: “Are not paid nearly enough given that they do 90 percent of the heavy lifting! I support any effort to improve their working conditions.”
Fair: “Do their job well and I acknowledge that.”
Bad: “Are fine, but I don’t understand why they won’t pick up my dry cleaning.”
Evil: “Should only be paid for nine months given that is the length of the academic year.”
If I had not become an academic, I would have:
Best: “Found another avenue to share my knowledge and research with a wider public. My goal would always be to find a way to enrich our intellectual conversations.”
Fair: “Found a job that allowed me to earn much more money.”
Bad: “Run for public office as a Republican so that I could dismantle higher education as we know it.”
Evil: “Harvested the souls of the innocent.”
The role model who influenced my career:
Best: “The hardworking professors who took an interest in me as a student. They not only taught me the knowledge that I need for this job, but also what it means to be a committed educator.”
Fair: “Wonder Woman.”
Bad: “I did it on my own. Nobody ever helped me and I was always falling through the cracks.”
Evil: “Pope Benedict XVI.”
When writing a book review for a journal:
Best: “I highlight the strengths of the book and the author’s intent. I limit my critique to one or two questions at most. It is important to recognize the hard work that goes into writing any monograph.”
Fair: “I offer faint praise, but conclude with criticism.”
Bad: “Most of my review is simply critique about what the author might have written but didn't. I can only think of holes in the work and imagine an entirely different book than the one that I am reviewing.”
Evil: “Every book review is just an opportunity to ruin somebody’s career.”
Many of you have asked what I thought about the failed effort to bring Wonder Woman back to television. Well, some of you asked. Okay, one person mentioned it in passing. Still, given that I shamelessly stole this beloved character to be my on-line avatar, I have some thoughts.
For those of you who don’t slavishly follow the Amazon Princess, NBC recently rejected a pilot for a new Wonder Woman t.v. series. Produced and written by David E. Kelley, many people (including Lynda Carter) fully expected that it would be a slam dunk. Certainly the actor chosen for the role was plausible. The few details that have emerged about the script, though, suggest that it was a bit of a trainwreck. Making a new Wonder Woman show should not have been that hard, really. This country is currently obsessed with the superhero genre. It’s true that Diana isn’t the only one who has been screwed over (Poor Green Lantern! I can smell the suck from here.), but she sure doesn’t get much respect. Shortly following NBC’s rejection, DC comics announced that it planned to reboot the Wonder Woman comic yet again. Ol’ Superheroine-Number-One can’t catch a break these days. For reasons that remain a total mystery to me, neither DC comics nor Warner Brothers ever solicits my opinion about how to promote and protect their most important female hero. I have some ideas:
1. Wonder Woman is a Feminist:
For either comic book writers or television executives, the “f” word continues to make their brows sweat. This probably explains why Warner Brothers tapped the creator of Ally “Feminism is Dead” McBeal as producer for their most recent t.v. venture. Gee, who would have guessed that would fail?
It’s fundamentally dishonest to develop a Wonder Woman project without feminism being a driving point of the story. Doing so would be like creating a t.v. show about the Tea Party without the crazy. When William Moulton Marston created the character in the 1940s, he included the radical notion that women were more than the intellectual equals of men. He feared that young girls were unfairly kept from realizing their true potentials and lacked the types of role models that abounded for boys in comics. True, he also had a bad habit of essentializing gender roles and some fairly bizarre notions that bondage could be a path to liberation (Paging Dr. Foucault, stat!). Still, for the middle of the twentieth century, any pop culture venue that showed women as both physically powerful and scientifically minded was a breakthrough.
Since that time, most of Wonder Woman’s (male) writers have had a hard time trying to figure out what to do with the feminist bits. Either they forced her into traditionally subservient roles (e.g. they made her secretary for the Justice Society despite her being the most powerful member) or they made her into a psycho man-hater who played into the media’s favorite image of feminists as unreasonable and bitter. Needless to say that neither of these is acceptable.
I can’t help but think that the fight for women’s equality has taken some huge steps backward over the past decade and a half. Personally, I put at least partial blame on the drivel created by David E. Kelley. The time is right for Wonder Woman to speak candidly about actual feminist goals.
2. Everybody Wants Wonder Woman to Wear Her Original Costume
Okay, I know the Playboy-bunny costume is sexist, absurd, and as practical as a wooden fire escape (See Number One Above). One doesn’t know if you should salute her or give her your drink order.
The efforts at changing her costume, however, have not really solved the biggest complaints about the original. Slapping on some skin-tight trousers while keeping her in a cleavage popping bustier is a lame attempt to appease critics. It should have been a forgone conclusion, too, that her costume would not be made out of plastic. The costume designer from the failed pilot was an idiot:
If Wonder Woman is going to inevitably be about T&A, then I say just own it and try to at least give her some dignity.
Also, keep the eagle and ditch the stupid WW. If you have doubts that the eagle is cool, consider that DC comics could sue the Washington Capitals for copyright infringement. If a WW eagle is tough enough for a hockey team, then it certainly can do the job for Wonder Woman.
3. Wonder Woman should never say the following lines of dialogue:
“If you liked it, you shoulda put a ring on it.”
“Capitalism sure seems like a fair and equitable economic system.”
“I want a baby so badly that I see one dancing in my room at night.”
"I just need to lose five more pounds."
“Why are all the best men married or gay?”
"I'm not a feminist, but . . ." (See Number One Above) “I can haz cheeseburger.”
"The unrestrained mergers of banks, airlines, media, and telecommunications corporations has served consumers well."
“When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.”
"The heterosexual nuclear family sure seems like a fair and equitable building block for society."
“Follow me on Twitter.”
“Cheesecake makes everything better.”
"What do you think of my costume?"
“The meek shall inherit the earth.”
“Math is hard!”
“Christianity sure seems like a fair and equitable religious system.”
4. Wonder Woman Does Not Believe in Capital Punishment
Wonder Woman might have some flaws in that she often solves violence with violence. Still, when push comes to shove (literally!), she will never kill anybody (except maybe Max Lord, but, hey, she had no choice). Given that the United States currently imagines its prison system as massive holding tanks and has no problem sending people to death, how radical would it seem for Wonder Woman to advocate that every person can be redeemed? Diana would likely imagine the current prison system as a symptom of a deeply flawed patriarchal society (See Number One Above). Instead, let's see a return of Reform Island!
5. Wonder Woman is a Scientist First, a Warrior Second
Diana first saved Steve Trevor’s life through her immense knowledge of science and medicine. Then she kinda got stuck saving his life all the time. Whatever the case, Wonder Woman is a thinker. Among the many quirky ideas held by Marston was the one that the Amazons attained their physical power through successfully tapping into their hidden intellectual gifts.
Young women in this country are still not encouraged to pursue science related careers. Playing up this aspect of her character would go a long way to inspiring women to change this (See Number One Above).
6. Wonder Woman Would Not Participate in, Much Less Profit from, the Subjugation of Other Women
One of the most puzzling details about the failed Kelley pilot was that Wonder Woman was supposed to have run a cosmetic company. Maybe this came from a desire to do a product placement with the recent MAC line featuring the iconic hero? Other than that, I can’t think why anybody who knows anything about Wonder Woman would think that would make sense (See Number One Above). I mean, okay, she did once run a dress shop, but that was from a comic storyline that is best forgotten. We can debate on whether makeup is about liberation or repression for women (Heck, I am undecided), but it seems unlikely that somebody devoted to gender equality (See Number One Above) would be interested in taking money from women so that they could attract a man.
Wonder Woman would be devoted to public service. First, she didn’t leave the comforts of her island, where she was a goddamn princess, just so that she could work for some faceless corporation. She left the island so that she could help patriarch’s world become better. Second, she would want a job that kept her informed about dangerous villains or international plots. It seems unlikely that such things would emerge during boardroom discussions about whether a new brand of lip gloss should be called "Cherry High."
7. Bring Back the Greek Gods
It might be sacrilege to some, but I was never a fan of George Pérez’s stint on Wonder Woman. No Diana Prince alter-ego just seems sad to me. Still, I will give him credit for drawing the Greek gods back into the mix. If Diana is almost indestructible in patriarch’s world, then she has to have somebody who can keep her on her toes. A god or two could do the trick. In the 1940s, it was a wager between Aries and Aphrodite that sent Wonder Woman into man’s world after all. Aphrodite argued that love could triumph over war (See Number One Above).
8. Doctor Psycho is a Plausible Villain
Some people argue that Wonder Woman lacks a decent rogues gallery. This just isn’t so. Why is Cheetah somehow lame, but Catwoman cool? They are basically the same character.
Regardless, the most interesting villain (aside from maybe Orana or Artemis) has to be Doctor Psycho. In lots of ways, he is the total opposite of Diana: insecure, cruel, and misogynistic (See Number One Above). His telepathic abilities make him a dangerous foe for somebody as powerful as Wonder Woman (I’m told one of the hardest parts of writing in the superhero genre is figuring out how to keep the threat real). The ideological divide between the two characters would make their battles all the more compelling. Who will win in the final throw down between the feminist (See Number One Above) or the misogynist?
9. Wonder Woman is a Fish Out of Water
Wonder Woman first achieved popularity, I think, because she offered an inverted mirror through which the U.S. could view itself. A smart writer would play up those aspects. That same writer would point out the foibles of our society as seen through a foreigner’s eyes.
The most immediate difference is that Diana never interacted with a patriarchal society (See Number One Above). Actually, she literally never interacted with a patriarch at all given that she had no father (She was formed out of clay by her mother, for those whose comic history is a little rusty). Her responses to the pervasive problems of our society could range from bemusement to impatience. Then, of course, there is the story line of her grappling with her feelings for Steve Trevor. This would be difficult for her because. . .
10. Wonder Woman was Raised by Lesbians!
Alright, there has never been anything to make this canonical. Still, wouldn’t that be a great story line that makes some sense? She is part of a society of women who had little use for the company of men. They lived quite happily for two thousand years until some guy showed up. How confused would the rest of the island be by the princess’s sexual interest in a man? Indeed, wouldn’t a few of them think of it as a bit perverted? Think of the immortal words of Queen Hippolyta, “I named this island ‘Paradise’ for an excellent reason. There are no men on it.” Suffering Sappho! I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.
Lately I have been thinking about graduate education in the humanities. Perhaps it would be a bit extreme to say that I have been having a moral crisis. Like St. Thomas, though, I sometimes have my doubts.
It’s not that I give credence to right-wing attacks on humanities research. Nothing drives me up the wall more than to switch on some local news story about an illiterate state legislator claiming that the humanities are irrelevant and a waste of tax payer money. I have written here and elsewhere about how critical an engagement with the humanities is for an informed and responsible citizenry, mostly to keep them from electing illiterate state legislators. Ethnic studies research also has a critical role to play as the nation’s demographics continue to shift. Ironically (in an Alanis Morrisette sorta way) it is at the very moment that companies and government agencies are desperate for individuals who can intelligently engage with minority communities, especially Latinos, that many universities are slashing their ethnic studies programs. I am looking at you, University of Texas system.
My concerns about graduate studies in the humanities are a bit more pragmatic. I have wondered about the wisdom of churning out armies of Ph.D.’s when the opportunity to land a traditional tenure–track position is becoming more and more remote. "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" or something . . .
Do we have any ethical obligation to resist the temptation to admit graduate students when we know this to be the case? How do we balance that obligation with an equal investment in insuring that new research on critical topics like race, gender, sexuality, class, disability studies and other fields moves forward?
Sadly, I have no answers to these questions. Instead, I can only think about the type of advice that I would give to newly admitted Ph.D. students in the Social Sciences or the Humanities. Hopefully you already received some clear-cut guidance before you applied to these programs. If not, here are some things to consider as you start a new program. It might be harsh, but it’s only because I love you.
1. Do not expect to get an academic job. Surely I can’t be the first person to mention that the academic job market is beyond miserable. A few very lucky folks land a coveted tenure-track position, but then a few lucky folks also win the lottery. Many others are placed into some mighty abysmal working arrangements as part of the adjunct machine. Universities and colleges, regrettably, know that they can acquire cheap labor and offer no guarantees because there is a surplus of Ph.D.’s on the market. Only you can decide if you want to work those long hours for minimal pay (and probably do without health benefits). It seems wiser, though, to prepare yourself to walk away from the t-t market. Consider obtaining an advanced degree as the opportunity itself. You have six years (or so) to really delve into topics that interest you. That is a luxury that can be enjoyed on its own.
2. Learn to combat feelings of being an intellectual imposter. If you find yourself feeling like everybody around you is a bit smarter or has read more, don’t worry. They are all thinking the exact same thing. I won’t deny that admissions to a graduate program depends upon a range of subjective criteria. Nonetheless, you would be surprised by the level of consensus that usually forms around candidates during admissions. This means that you should rest assured that you are just as bright and capable as any other student in the program.
3. Learn to combat feelings of being an intellectual superior. This is the flip side of number two. Indeed, many students vacillate between these two extremes. Graduate school can turn you downright bipolar. You have talents, to be sure, but they do not surpass those around you. It has seemed to me that once graduate students go down the path of hyper-ego their minds close faster than a vegan restaurant in Texas.
4. Use the gentle cycle on the washing machine. Have you looked at your stipend recently? You better make your existing wardrobe last because there are no trips to the mall in your future. It’s either that or join a nudist colony by your fifth year.
5. Remember that being a graduate student is a remarkably privileged position. This might seem hard to imagine given the brutal hours that you spend toiling away in the library. Nonetheless, you are now part of a tiny educated elite in this country whatever your economic or social class prior to admission. Estimates suggest that only 3 percent of the nation’s population holds a Ph.D. There are many mighty smart people who would have jumped at the chance to continue their education, but circumstances prevented it. This isn’t to say that the stress you feel is not real or that institutions can’t do better. Still, remember that you aren’t exactly shoveling coal for a living either.
6. Avoid having sex with faculty members in your department/immediate field. In my time, I have been propositioned by faculty who outranked me and also by graduate students. I don’t mention this to make claims about my innate hotness (Although . . .), rather it is to suggest that such things are a common turn of events in the academic world. It seems to me if you are a woman or a gay man, your chances of fielding unexpected/unwanted advances are pretty high. For some gay men, it’s how they say hello.
It might also be the case that you are occasionally dazzled by a faculty member who really pushes your buttons. Never, though, does it seem like a particularly good idea when there is such an obvious difference in power. Coming up with polite ways to decline is your best option.
Feel free to have sex with faculty members in departments far removed from your own. If you are in the humanities, there is no reason not to take a tumble with somebody in civil engineering should the mood and opportunity appear. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.
7. Learn the metric system. Okay, this doesn't really have much to do with your success in the program. Still, it's embarrassing that the U.S. is far behind on converting to metric.
8. Summers are not vacations. Take a poll of your department’s junior faculty and find out how they spent their summer months. Chances are you will hear things like “researching,” “writing,” “visiting archives,” or “field work.” If you hear the word “vacation,” generally it means they have dragged their significant other along with them in a simple attempt to appease them. “Yeah, I really needed to spend some serious time at the Iowa State Archive,” one might say, “so I took my husband and we made a vacation out of it! I don’t care what they say, Des Moines has lots of summer surprises.” By “vacation,” they really mean that their spouse got to spend time with them late at night and on the weekends when the archives closed. The spouse’s “surprise” was that they found themselves being a dedicated xerox operator the rest of the time.
This is a window into the life of an academic, especially one who is early in hir career. The demands of the regular academic year generally permit only scattered time to focus on a research agenda. Summers become precious opportunities to really bare down and work. If you plan to spend the four months lounging around a pool without cracking an academic journal or book, save yourself some heartache and drop out of graduate school now.
9. Tend to your personal life. Sacrifices will inevitably have to be made, but try not to let grad school take complete control of your life. Have plans to get married? No reason not to do so. I mean, you’ll still end up divorced eventually, so why not get the clock running now? At least this way you’ll still be relatively young when your first marriage goes south. Want children? Go for it (Although, as always, I would suggest that one think carefully about the larger environmental implications of producing another weapon of massive consumption). Don’t have a family plan? Rather frequent bathhouses? As long as you have an endless supply of condoms, I say make it a weekly ritual if that’s your thing. In other words, there is really not a reason to delay doing other things simply for graduate school. This doesn’t mean that you don’t still need to do the actual work, but I haven’t seen any reward come to those who put off their personal life.
10. Keep an eye on the liquor consumption. It’s hardly an original story when one turns to gin when feeling a bit stressed out. I am not a teetotaler (trust me), but it is always well worth thinking about how much liquor you consume. Avoid the binges or drinking every day. Besides, it’s an expensive habit and that money could go to other extravagances – like protein. An ideal scholar ends up with a classroom building named after hir; a less than ideal scholar ends up with the boardroom at Tanqueray named after hir.
11. Come to terms with the fact that you will not likely live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston, or another of the nation’s great cities. Back in the nineteenth century, when most of this nation’s universities started, popular thinking associated cities with vice, pollution, and unhealthy living. To insure that young adults remained morally and physically in shape, the logic went, universities needed to be as far away from urban areas as possible. Better that they hang out with the cows. That was before the nation faced the epidemic of bovine gangs. Personally, I blame the alfalfa black-market.
Now we reap the legacy of nineteenth-century discourse as most of us in the academic world live in small towns rather than metropolises. This, I think, is one of the hardest things that we have to come to terms with for this job, especially if you’re gay (where the number of other gay people is necessarily going to be quite small). I have no solution to offer, which is probably why Tanqueray named that boardroom after me.
12. Learn how to communicate your ideas to a wide audience. There are good reasons to delve deeply into a particular subfield or methodology. Nonetheless, you’ll be taking your dissertation on a road tour before you know it. If you find yourself at conferences getting asked questions about your main argument (or, worse, not getting asked any questions at all), it’s not the audience’s problem. You have to know how to pitch things in a way that is approachable from a wider range of disciplines.
Keep your chin up. In the end, graduate school is mostly about sticking through it.
Like manypeople, I have been haunted by the recent revelations of bullying of GLBTQ youth in schools and universities. These tragedies have shocked people, I think, because there has been a presumption that somehow homophobia had been “solved” in our society. Indeed, before these news stories broke, both hetero and queer friends commented to me that they had faith in the future because the younger generation was immune from the hangups of the bad ol’ days. “It’s not like when we were kids” was a common refrain. Having spent several years in TexAss and hearing from students there, I knew that the picture was not quite as rosy as everybody hoped.
Having previously blatantly plagiarizedborrowed liberally been inspired by Dan Savage’s humor, I was drawn to his “It Gets Better Campaign.” This project collects videos from queer people across the world who want to offer words of hope to young people. If you haven’t done so, spend some time watching these stories and learn about how they lived through the bullying and found a better life.
It probably won’t surprise anybody, but my gravitas found shape in some pretty grim experiences as a young person. Growing up in a Latino/Irish Catholic family during the 1980s meant that I heard clearly and frequently that being gay was not an acceptable option. Compounding that was my father’s alcoholism and abusive tendencies, which were themselves compounded by his irregular income. Having enjoyed a pretty solid middle class existence through elementary school, my entrance into middle school coincided with my family becoming broke, erratic, and unpredictable. For the next ten years we would be perpetually wondering if our utilities would be shut off again or how ends would be met. We walked on eggshells in the hopes that my father wouldn't have an outburst. To say that my home life was not a supportive and safe environment is a bit like saying the Titanic had some minor design flaws.
I can’t pinpoint one particular incident when the school bullying started, but it is worth noting that we are not talking about an occasional scuffle or a few harsh words from time to time. It was a daily eight-hour marathon of intense harassment starting in the seventh grade. I became a master of time management having been able to pace my walk to the bus stop so that it was only a minute or two from the time that the bus would arrive (as I was certainly going to be tormented, probably beat up, if I dared to show up too early). For those who have never been fortunate enough to take a school bus, let me tell you how lucky you are. They are basically rolling sardine cans of torture. The bus driver is usually too focused on keeping the thing on the road (and probably nursing a hangover) to intervene in what is transpiring in the rear of the bus.
At one point, a new driver did try to impose order on the bus by instituting a seating chart. The “cool” kids (and being “cool” and being a bully often went hand and hand in middle school) protested against such an arrangement. “There is a fag on this bus,” one of them told the bus driver, “and we shouldn’t be forced to sit with him.” My face flushed as I tried to meld with my current seat. “Well,” the bus driver said, “what you will learn when you get older is that the fags are the ones driving the fancy sports cars while you are driving a bunch of brats around in a bus.” As empty as that sounds in retrospect, that was the closest thing to a defense that any adult offered me during the entire time that I was in middle school.
Not soon after the seat reassignments, I remember exiting the school bus one day and suddenly feeling something damp hit my cheek. Then something else wet hit my face immediately after. The intense New Mexico sun was already burning holes in the asphalt, even at 8 in the morning, so it couldn’t be rain. As I looked around quickly, I realized what was happening. The other boys in the school were spitting on me. The door to the bus closed and it drove away as I was surrounded by hacking and spewing. I pushed my way through the crowd and went to the restroom to try and washout the gobs of phlegm that were enmeshed in my hair. I considered myself lucky that none of them followed me to the boy’s room, as it was a place where I was usually guaranteed a beating and therefore avoided it at all costs during other circumstances. That pretty much sums up my middle school life: literally spat upon. Friends became a concept totally alien to me as I had zero (not a single one).
At home, I learned to avoid my father until he was safely passed out for the night. During the day, I avoided anywhere that was public, including the lunch room. To be honest, I didn’t really have money for lunch anyway. The library became a refuge where I read silently. Most of the rest of the students, it seems, had no interest in books. Reading offered not only an immediate escape, but I also had sense enough to know that education might just be a long-term salvation and perhaps the key to that promised sports car.
The library seemed like an ideal hideout until the school librarian asked me not to return anymore because my silent reading bothered her. With such an astounding adult staff, it’s a real mystery why my middle school continues to be considered one of the worst in Albuquerque to this day. After being booted from my haven, I spent my lunch time roaming the school grounds with my eyes firmly fixed on my shoes and not speaking to anybody.
High school promised a change. Well, it seemed like it might offer a change at least. The school was extremely large (my graduating class had 1,200 people) and there were assurances/expectations that I would find my niche. . . or at least one friend. Those hopes were quickly dashed on day one. Things couldn’t have been worse as I had the very bad luck to be assigned P.E. as my first class of the day. Without skipping a beat from middle school, I was instantly surrounded by another group of bullies (or occasional bullies) who asked me on that first day, “Are you a faggot, Faggot?” It made me wonder what it was about me that they had so quickly noticed. It was the first moment that they had ever laid eyes on me and yet they were already singling me out as the target of ridicule and harassment. It would be years before I was willing to really admit my sexuality to myself, but these folks were dead certain of it. When the first day ended, I remember going immediately to my room and crying. My mother diagnosed my tears as a product of being overwhelmed by the change. I knew, though, that I was more overwhelmed by the lack of change.
The bulling continued for all of that year, especially in P.E. No matter the sport we were supposed to play, my tormentors found unique and novel ways to use the equipment against me. Field hockey, which we played on a freezing patch of mud, became a venue where they would intentionally send the ball my way so that they could “legitimately” smack me around with their sticks. Volleyball, which I had until that point always imagined as a nonviolent and potentially fun sport, offered opportunities for them to spike the roughly covered ball directly into my face at full force. And those were my “teammates.” Tennis left me covered with welts from being pummeled with a barrage of yellow balls. “Dodge Ball” could only have been invented by a sadistic, homophobic jerk.
Some of you might be asking, wasn’t there a teacher assigned to this class? Were you just a bunch of little animal things let out without any supervision? Of course, the class did have a teacher of record: a relatively young man named Coach Sánchez who also happened to be in charge of the football team. Let me tell you, he either ignored the abuse I faced or tacitly approved of it. In that entire year, I remember him intervening just once. A group had clustered around me and had forgone any pretense that impending injury was just a result of athletic mishap. He disbanded the group and then roughly pushed me to a corner and asked, “Why do I have to defend you? It’s not my job. I have forty other students in this class. They're picking on you because it’s your own fault.” He was actually angry that I was “allowing” myself to become the subject of torment. I had heard of blaming the victim, but this gave me a new vantage point into that sociological concept.
It was at that precise moment that Coach Sánchez mysteriously burst into flames and melted into a bizarre waxy spot on the basketball court. Well, that’s what would have happened if I had strange mental powers at the time. Perhaps it is a good thing that I hadn’t developed those . . . yet.
Since Coach Sánchez apparently took the film Tea and Sympathy as the basis for his pedagogy, the rest of the year progressed with me living in constant fear and dread. Needless to say, his singular intervention only increased the torment. “Hey, fag” one of my tormentors told me as he pushed me against the gym lockers (the locker rooms were rarely supervised by teachers of coaches. Wasn’t that nice?), “Do you want Sánchez to take care of you? Does he know that you want to stare at his dick? Fag.” That showed how ignorant the bully really was. If I wasn’t clear in my own my mind about my sexual desires, I knew for sure that I had absolutely no attraction to Coach Sánchez (And, in retrospect, is that really what he imagined two gay people did together? Just stared at each other’s penis? Idiot.).
My freshman year continued to be painful and intensely lonely. During health class that year, my teacher informed us that having gay sex was a one-way ticket to death by AIDS. Listening to him made one think that a date with another man would start with dinner and a show and end in bodybags and morticians. I delved deeper into reading and was grateful that at least the highschool library stayed open during lunch.
My story didn’t include the nice ways that the media presents stories of queer youth on television. No open-minded and understanding adult appeared to save me from the bullies or offer much assurance at all that being queer was actually a good thing. No peer reached out a helping hand or words of kindness. Nor did my hidden fantasies, informed heavily by the media, come true with a white knight appearing on the horizon to rescue me. In the end, there was only me left to figure out what to do. I know that I would have been so relieved and comforted had the "It Gets Better" campaign existed when I was young. Even the assurances of strangers would have made a big difference.
True to the current campaign’s name, things did get better for me. Much better. Thank the goddess, New Mexico only required one year of P.E. I also slowly and consciously began to work on my own social skills and to actively learn how to make friends. It might seem strange, but after many years of being almost mute in public, it was tough to figure out how to hold basic conversations. Rightly or wrongly (Healthily or unhealthily?), I also learned to totally compartmentalized the chaos at home as well. I also started working which brought me into contact with people who were already in college. My real path to queer salvation didn’t occur until I entered university too, but I did manage to find a place for myself by the end of highschool.
Today, I might still be waiting on that sports car, but I have a pretty darn good life. My job is cushy and rewarding. I have lots of friends who adore me. Plus, I can be as out as I possibly can be, including in the classroom.
I am angry that my young GLBTQ brothers and sisters continue to suffer the same types of harassment that I endured. The bullying, isolation, and despair that GLBTQ teenagers experience in this country is tied directly to the ways that our lives are discounted in our larger society. It is a discounting that starts right at the top. President Barack Obama says that he thinks queer people should have some rights, but not equal rights and that heterosexual institutions need to be “protected” [apparently from us]. Keep in mind we are supposed to consider him our ally. What else can young people conclude but that queer people are less valuable? It seems to me that school grounds are simply enacting the inequalities that exist throughout our society. Indeed, recent news stories reveal that young immigrant youths are also being tormented and tortured on their school grounds. I would argue that it is a similar symptom of the way this country has demonized others and sent the message that certain people in our society are open targets.
I suppose the traditional ending to these types of recollections should include a wise and informed gesture to the idea that these are the things that made me who I am. Or, for those of us who were raised Catholic, we are to marvel that the challenges which did not kill us actually made us stronger. Well, if that were true, shouldn’t I have developed those strange mental powers by now? With all the shit that I went through, I should at least be able to levitate a table or something.
I am a queer associate professor of Chicano Studies. Currently, I am at a major research university in Midwestern Funky Town. As a single gay man, I am just trying to figure out my life. If I can't do that, then at least I will buy some cool shoes.
