I Have Always Depended on the Kindness of Internet Strangers

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 pity deep 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.

Center of Fabulous

Remember that Part II of my discussion with VUBOQ can be found here. In this addition, VUBOQ shares his special holiday cocktail recipes. It's like blogging with Martha Stewart. Well, if Martha Stwart were a gay man. What am I saying? "If!"

There is even more sequins, glitter, and Cher!

Inside the Blogging Studio with VUBOQ

Over the past five years, blogging has allowed me to meet some mighty cool people in real life. On that list is the ever effervescent VUBOQ (not to mention his superfantabulous cuzin who happens to be my superfantabulous neighbor). The time had come for us to sit down for a special holiday spectacular:

***

VUBOQ: As you all know, GayProf is Full of the Gravitas. However, I am lucky enough to know the GayProf in the Real Life (yay! You may all envy/worship me). And, since I know him in the Real Life, I know that he is not always Full of the Gravitas. Sometimes he is Full of the Light-Heartedness and Fun and, sometimes he can be a little bit silly (especially after a couple of bottles of red wine).

GayProf: Ugh – I was full of the Spanish red. Man, I still have a hangover from your visit.

VUBOQ: So, for this joint post, my goal is to show the rest of Blogtopia this side of the GayProf. We are going to discuss the fun, the frivolous, the sparkly, the glittery, and the tons of f**king sequins.



But, we are going to start with the Food (and the booze!) ...

I had the very good fortune to visit GayProf in Midwestern Funky Town recently (you may have read about it!). During that visit, he taught me and my superfantabulous cuzin how to make tamales. For those of you who don't know, GayProf is from New Mexico, which is not a foreign country (*cough* right *cough*). BUT, they do make foreign food ... like tamales! Normally, the tamales are made with the pork products. Such as pork. and lard. However, GayProf, knowing that I am vegetarian and have eschewed all meat, made his beloved tamales without the pieces of shredded and mutilated dead pig. Our tamales were made with Crisco^© (*gasp*) and beans.

GayProf: I still can’t believe that I grew up believing that Crisco^© was somehow a healthy alternative to lard. They lied to me! Lard is really the only way to go. It is the secret ingredient to all great Mexican cooking.

VUBOQ: Piglet (no matter how delicious he may be) did not die for our tamales. And they were YUMMERz. Really. Ask the GayProf's Sparkly Contingent of Gays who were at his little dinner party (we'll be discussing the place settings later ... trust me).

GayProf: You’re not going to mock my dishmania, are you?

VUBOQ: Never. I may playfully poke fun, though. Anyway, his willingness to cast aside his love for Cruelly Raised and Brutally Slaughtered Pigs just for my eating preference is yet another reason I totes *heart* the GayProf.



GayProf: It turns out that I was eager to try a tamale alternative to my usual (absurdly delicious) pork filled versions. Beans worked out pretty well. It does make me wonder, though, why Mexican food in general doesn’t get the respect it deserves. To my mind, it is one of the classic world cuisines: easily identifiable and supremely influential. Yet, the only time the mainstream media gives it any credit is if a white boy adopted it (i.e. Bobby Flay or Rick Balis).

VUBOQ: Which brings us to the main point of this section: VEGETARIAN COOKING. It really isn't that difficult. And modifying UberMeaty recipes into something a vegetarian can eat isn't that difficult. Right, GayProf?

GayProf: Vegetarian cooking is hell. It’s only because I adore you so that I even attempt it.



You see, I only know how to make basically six things. Five of them involve meat in some form or another. I was glad that the bean tamales turned out somewhat okay. Otherwise it would have been quiche forever.

VUBOQ: There is nothing wrong with the quiche. Real men eat it, I hear.

GayProf: Don’t get me wrong, I admire the vegetarians (less so the vegans, who just take things too damn far (Hate mail for GayProf can be sent in care of VUBOQ at blogspot.com)). If I spend anytime thinking about the way animals suffer for our food, it makes me want to be a vegetarian. But, then I don’t think about it. La-la-la-la-la-la – Can’t hear you. I am pretty weak willed when it comes to meat, as it turns out.

Still, I’m not somebody who has to eat meat everyday. I am more than happy to have a basic bean burrito as my meal. Plus, I adore tofu. As I recall, somebody was supposed to give me a cooking lesson with tofu while he visited. **cough-cough**

It does remind me of those faux vegetarians we talked about while you were in MFT. I’ll do my best to accommodate guests who are really committed to vegetarianism (or who have similar religious convictions), but I have no patience for the people who are “vegetarian,” but make exceptions for seafood. What evidence is there that a tuna is somehow less likely to suffer pain and panic than a chicken? Frankly, it seems likely to me that a tuna is probably a bit smarter than chickens. And, as cooking goes, few things are more cruel than lobster and crab. Vegetarians who eat seafood are like people who claim that they are kosher, except they love a side of bacon in a thick cream gravy every now and again. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.

VUBOQ: Yes, the fake vegetarians grate on my last nerve. Although, I have found that their calling themselves “vegetarian” is because they don’t know the correct word for their particular eating habits. Fish-eating vegetarians are pescatarians, derived from the Greek root “pesce” meaning “not a vegetarian.” Vegetarians who eat chicken (or any other meat product) are Filthy Dirty Liars.

Haha! I kid. Vegetarians, who sometimes supplement their diets with the flesh of dead animals, are flexitarians. See? You can learn something and still be sparkly and fabulous. Now, go forth and educate the masses!

GayProf: Flexitarians? I thought that was a category on Manhunt.

***
Tune in tomorrow at VUBOQ's place for the conclusion of our musings.

Amazon Sisters are Doing it for Themselves

Join me today for the final section of "Inside the Blogging Studio with Bourgeois Nerd." If you are just tuning in, and surprised to find out that this blog has new content, do read Part I and II

***

Bourgeois Nerd (BN): What do you think your blog audience is? I get the impression that yours is much more diverse than mine. It’s harder to tell, since I don’t get the kind of comment feedback you do, but I’m definitely very much a gay man blog, whereas you have more women and straight people.

GayProf (GP): I have been really lucky that some mighty cool people have stopped by to read my blog. Some of the people that I have met (either virtually or in RL) through the blog have been absolutely the best (with just a few exceptions).

Over time, I think CoG’s readers have shifted a bit. Now that most of my posts tend to be about the academic world, my audience has predictably shifted to more professors and such. In the start, though, I had very few academics reading the blog. I think it depends on the content that you are producing. Your "Skimpy Sundays" probably draws a particular crowd of **ahem** fashionable men.

My truly loyal readers are my legions of fellow Amazons. Great Hera! What would I do without them?

BN: There is a very thriving academic blogosphere. It’s actually been around since I started reading blogs; academic blogs were among the first ones I read.

Are there any bloggers you wish you could be?

GP: You, darling, of course.

BN: Stop! You make me blush. (Go on!)

But, seriously, who do you admire? For me, there’s my big blog brother Scott, of course (and even if I knew he would beat me up if I didn’t include him, I’d still say that). There’s also Eric over at Sore Afraid. He writes the most beautiful, lyrical, dryly funny long-form pieces about his life and ruminations on language, gay culture, religion, and family. Plus, he’s hunky, smart, and well-traveled. Chris Sims is an incredible comics blogger; he makes me laugh almost every day; Joe Jervis and Andy Towle; and, of course, there’s you, my Amazon Sister! Who doesn’t want to be GayProf, though?



GP: You are wise to try and emulate me.

Gosh, if I have to start naming all the fantastic bloggers out there, I know that I will accidentally miss somebody. I have really enjoyed seeing Tenured Radical and Historiann develop a whole different dimension to their academic careers through their blogs. A few times in meetings, I have heard colleagues reference Tenured Radical on a particular issue. That suggests to me that her blogging has an impact. Like a Whisper and Angry Black Bitch are really great at thinking about questions of social justice in the news.

Tornwordo, VUBOQ, and Someoninatree are some of the more personal blogs that I still keep up with as much as I can. Dorian at Postmodern Barney remains the undisputed queen of gay comic bloggers, I am pretty sure. Down and Out in Denver is a newer blog that has some sly wit.

All these many years later, I still, still, still miss the Ninth Circle of Helen. She was fabulous.



See? It’s just too hard to narrow down the list because there are so many people out there rocking the blogosphere.

BN: You once commented that you could be “nostalgic for what I had for breakfast this morning.” Light-hearted self-deprecating hyperbole that it is, I actually really identify with that statement, because I sometimes feel I’m one big walking pit of nostalgia. I’m nostalgic for things I didn’t experience or was even alive for. Do you think nostalgia is intrinsic to nerdiness? Do you think this inclination had something to do you’re your becoming a historian?

GP: Breakfast this morning was so great. The coffee was just the right temperature. I had a banana that was perfectly ripe. Such a breakfast will never happen again. **Sigh**.


Actually, I think becoming a professional historian is a good cure for romanticizing the past. I mean, I don’t really want to go back to an era where my sexuality would have resulted in my being sent to jail or given electroshock therapy.

BN: This extreme nostalgia is one of the reasons I’m obsessed with memory, why I find books so important. To lose memory is to lose a world. Books are the only way to capture an individual’s thoughts and feelings and point of view, even if only in a limited, edited way. You’re in the business of reconstructing memory. When you’re working on NERPoDs, do you feel like you’re resurrecting people and times? Do you regret that you can only do pale shadows, because you’re limited to what was written and recorded?

GP: I think NERPoD and NERPoD: The Sequel are both creating a type of memory more than they are recovering memories. It seems to me that making arguments about the past helps us to think about our modern concerns. So, even though I am writing history, it is always a product of the present.

In terms of the actual (now dead) people, I would like to think that they would see themselves in the things that I write. They were people who were trying to figure out how to deal with race and racism in a remarkably hostile nation. I doubt that they imagined any historian would really care about their lives 150 years later. Their goals were more immediate: How do I feed my folk when ravenous Texans keep snatching my land away from me?


BN: Do you ever feel like a “bad gay”? I feel like I’m “missing” certain things. Yes, yes, yes, gay life isn’t and shouldn’t be nothing but a sea of hedonism, parties and sex and debauchery. This is stereotype, and not how all, or even most of us, live, or should live. But, you know, I wouldn’t mind some hedonism.



GP: Don’t dream it, be it!

I feel like I’m a great gay! Though, more sex with other gay men is always welcome.

BN: I think gay people should be able to be who they are, whether it’s a screaming queen or a boring-ass suburban like me. It’s good we’ve moved away from stereotypes. But I feel we’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water. Suburban conformity shouldn’t be a goal, simply a choice. And the whole fetishizing of “straight-acting” and “masculinity” is maddening, especially when it turns on those who do conform to old stereotypes. There are people out there who are genuinely effeminate: there are show queens, there are drag queens, there are queens who just love Ethel Merman and Cher, and they’re just as much a part of this community as any gay couple with 2.3 adopted children and two SUVs in the driveway. To deny them is folly. Straight people aren’t going to accept us if we purge ourselves of the “bad” images and act like good little drones; many straight people will never accept us at all. If we are accepted, it must be for all of us, not just those who can “pass.”

GP: After all these many years, we still haven’t learned the lessons in the sacred text Free to Be You and Me. A hungry nation calls out, “Marlo Thomas, where are you in our hour of need?”

It seems to me that the whole nation has taken a slow veer towards the conservative side. The queer community isn’t alone in valorizing the nuclear family. Over the past decade, I have been saddened by the number of straight people I have met who unquestioningly adopt some pretty retrograde gender notions in their marriages and families. During the 1990s, it felt like there were more people critiquing assumptions about relationships and being quite critical of narrow ideas about "family."

Nowadays the nuclear family has become a type of competitive sport. Middle-class folk are on a mission to raise the “perfect, genius, super special” children. It disheartens me that people define their identity through these types of familial relationships.



I am also disappointed that the gay marriage debate hasn’t prompted a wider discussion about whether “traditional” marriage is really working for the majority of people. Given the ever escalating divorce rate, I would sorta think it isn’t.

It seems to me that queer folk are actually quite involved in negotiating the terms of their relationships that are markedly different than their hetero counterparts. Many gay men, for instance, openly reject monogamy as a hallmark of a stable relationship. That discussion, though, gets lost in the effort to make sure that everybody imagines that gay relationships are “the same as” straight relationships.



This is a strategy that most civil rights groups adopt at some point or another. Certainly some members of the African American community at the turn of the twentieth century or members of the Latino community in the 1940s and 1950s openly advocated for an adoption of “middle class" values and practices as a means to obtain equality in the nation. So too are some gay men and lesbians putting out the idea that if everybody was the same, then we wouldn’t be different

It’s not that I oppose gay marriage. For some people, that type of relationship really is the best suited for their personality. We also have to fight the fight given it was handed to us by the radical right. Maybe, though, my own experience has made me more skeptical about marriage’s overall value and durability. I always say, the best thing about legalizing gay marriage would be gay divorce.


BN: You said it, GayProf! I’m a product of a rather traditional middle-class upbringing, and I’m more than proud of it, but it should be an option, not a diktat. I think it’s great that many gay couples negotiate non-monogamous relationships, and hate when other gay people especially tut-tut such things.

Well, I think this blog conversation has run its course. I must say, I enjoyed it immensely! We definitely have to do it again.

GP: It has been my pleasure. Now, let's break out the cocktail shaker and dance, dance, dance.

Nerdy, Gay, and Neurotic

Remember to continue reading Part II of my conversation with Bourgeois Nerd. You might learn things about GayProf you never knew.

Inside the Blogging Studio with Bourgeois Nerd

Oh, I know -- You all were expecting another post about the problems I see in patriarch's world Arizona. I do have plenty to say about the most recent law banning ethnic studies. Still, sometimes one needs a little escapism. This is why I jumped at the chance to have a chat with my ol' blogging buddy Bourgeois Nerd. Join us for the first part of our chat here today, and over at his place tomorrow for Part II.

***

Bourgeois Nerd (BN): Ever since GayProf and Historiann’s terrific blog conversation, I knew I wanted to do something similar. The only problem is I’m not an academic, so there were no historiographic or pedagogical issues we could really discuss. So what I was thinking was we’d talk about being gay nerd bloggers and how that influences our perspectives and content. Or something. It’s a bit meta, perhaps even navel-gazing, but I think it will work. I guess we’ll see.

I guess we’ll go with a slightly cliché question to break the ice: what brought you to blogging? Mine was just peer pressure, basically. I started reading a lot of blogs over a winter break in college, everyone was doing it, so I thought “Hey, why not!”

GayProf (GP): My blog actually started from a convergence of really bad scenes and drama. At the time (so long ago, now!) my eight year relationship with My Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) was coming to an end. Oddly, it was he who suggested that I do a blog. Maybe he wanted to distract me from all the lies he kept telling. On this I cannot say.

BN: I’ve always wanted to meet Liar Ex (Who Told Many Lies) just so I could pop him one on your behalf.



GP: Eh – He’s not really worth it. As it turns out, I am so much better off without him around. Funny how not living with a total loser makes your life easier and more fun. Life lesson learned. To misquote the immortal Tina Turner, "If you wanna love a man like me, it takes a man to do it."

In addition to the relationship nastiness, I was stuck in a miserable small town in the middle of TexAss and surrounded by remarkably hostile colleagues in my work life. The small gay community that was there felt really depressing because they were so under siege.

So, I guess you could say that my blog started out of desperation. I mean, you could say that, but it would make me feel bad about myself.

At the time, the blogosphere felt a bit smaller than it is now. Even though I didn’t anticipate it as a result, it turned out to be a really great way to connect with people.

BN: Totally. The stereotype of the pajama-clad blogger with no friends is so not true; blogging really is a great way to meet people and create communities. I’ve met people I wouldn’t have otherwise in a million years, from the big brother I never had to porn stars to you, My Strong Amazon Sister.

When did you first realize you were a nerd? As I said just the other day on my blog, I think I burst from the womb a nerd; it’s in my blood.

GP: Wait – you think that I am a nerd?!



Just because a person reads all the time, rarely exposes his skin to sunlight, hasn’t watched a television show produced after 1979, and is most widely associated with a campy comic book character, does that make him a nerd?

Oh . . . I guess it does. Damn! This I know for sure: I’d much rather be in a room surrounded by gay nerds than in a room with hetero “cool” people.

BN: To be in a room surrounded by gay nerds would be total bliss for me. (And a sexual fantasy, but we won’t go into that; this is a family blog conversation.)

GP: Maybe your blog is for families, but my blog ain’t for children.

BN: What do you think it means to be a gay nerd? It’s sort of being a double outsider; do you think it gives us a different perspective?



GP: For me, being a nerd isn’t about limits. It’s about being empowered to claim things – Like the authority to decide whether Matt Smith is brilliant or rubbish as the Doctor!

BN: Nerds get to unabashedly love something (sometimes too well), even if it’s not the socially-sanctioned subjects that people are allowed to be passionate about. Hardcore sports fans are as insane as any Star Trek conventioneer or guy who dresses up like Sonic the Hedgehog, but it’s “manly” so it’s okay.

GP: Though, to be fair, hardcore sports fans baffle me. I could see why they might not quite understand the pointed-ears thing (And, yes, I have attended a Star Trek convention in my lifetime.).

BN: Oh, they baffle me, too, but they’re “acceptable” in a way the people who speak Klingon aren’t.

You know, I’ve never been to a convention! It’s totally unbelievable, but true. I really want to go to at least one someday.

GP: I had a generally good time at the convention. It was around when I was 12 or 13 and Nichelle Nichols was the speaker. My father dropped me off at the convention center at 10 am and then returned around 6 or 7 pm. Today, he would probably be arrested for child abandonment.



But if your sexual fantasy is to be in a room surrounded by gay nerds, maybe you might want to look into the Trek conventions? I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

BN: A real nerd is interesting because they’ve put time and thought into at least one non-mainstream activity or product. Anyone can talk about the weather, but not everyone can argue convincingly about warp core design.

Also, Matt Smith: brilliant as the Doctor. It’s heresy, I know, but, at least at the end, I kinda couldn’t stand David Tennant and Ten. The smug pomposity made me gag. (To add to the heresy: I think Chris Eccleston is much hotter than Tennant, especially with the leather jacket. I also think he was the better Doctor and actor.) I think Matt Smith and Eleven will be just the right kind of unabashedly goofy to clear the air after two very angsty Doctors. And Amy Pond is just amazing. I’m predicting she’ll be my favoritest Companion ever.

GP: Sacrilege! Only Martha Jones can hold the title of favoritest companion!



BN: Poor Martha. That’s always how I think of her: “Poor Martha.” She got a really raw deal as a Companion.

GP: Martha was the only companion who felt like a solid peer to the doctor. Donna, though, was a nice change in that she wasn’t always fawning.

Matt Smith strikes me as more pompous than David Tennant. Smith seems to be doing okay so far, but I can’t say that I adore him. He often looks out of his acting depth – Kinda like he is a teenage boy who borrowed his father’s suit to play a business man in the high school play.


BN: Do you think a gay nerd is really any different from being a straight nerd, other than appreciating all the men in spandex, or do we have some unique perspective?

GP: Being queer gives us a unique perspective on everything else, so of course I think we are different caste of nerd. I’ve heard different theories about the attraction of some gay men to nerdom. For me, nerdom provided an absolute escape from a pretty grim adolescence.

BN: I totally hear you about “escape.” It was definitely that for me. This sounds so pathetic, probably because it is, but there was a large stretch of my life where books and Star Trek were my only friends. Even now, it’s a nice way to escape from quotidian reality.

Do you think your blog helps you at all in your academic work? I know some academic bloggers, such as The Little Professor, use blog posts to “think out loud” about issues they’re working on professionally.

GP: Well, given how indiscreetly I critiqued some of my evil TexAss colleagues, I’m lucky it didn't end my career as an academic!



The way that it has helped my career is much the same as most people report about blogging: It provided a much wider circle of people that I know. I wouldn’t say that the writing has done much for me (except occasionally distract me from NERPoD). Instead, I tended to use the blog to write about things that I wouldn’t have been able to write about in my academic career.

What I like about the blog is that I can have a bit more of a sense of humor. It might surprise you, but academics aren’t well known for being a barrel of laughs. Even when we are writing about really serious issues, I think that you can still poke fun. Like, for instance, noting that Arizona recently changed its advertising campaign to be “The Grand Klan State.” It’s a little clunky, but it apparently tested better than “Got Whiteness?”

BN: I still can’t believe that law passed. Tell me you’re going to do a post on that, as only you can?



GP: I did my best before hand.

BN: You sure did. But now they’re getting rid of any teacher with an accent, and, in a direct attack on you, outlawing ethnic studies! What is going on?!?

GP: The governor just signed the law outlawing ethnic studies courses. That state is becoming a leader of asshattery.

BN: You post less, but generally longer-form, and usually have a long comment thread. I tend to post more, but generally shorter-form, and rarely have many, if any comments. This isn’t a criticism of my wonderful, fabulous readers whom I love very much (it isn’t), or to say your (wonderful, fabulous) readers are better, but I do find it interesting.

GP: My posting less isn’t really by design. After five years, the ol’ creative tank might be nearing empty. It would be nice to think of it as a genius campaign to build momentum for the blog. In my fantasies, scores of people are huddled around their laptops waiting for the day that a new post emerges on CoG. In reality, though, the blogosphere has a shorter attention span than Bart Simpson. Any day, I expect the blogging version of Heidi Klum to send an e-mail telling me that I’m “out.” I wonder who that would be – Joe. My. God?

BN: I definitely know what you mean about the creative tank running low. I find my creativity and posting frequency is very, very cyclical. I also have an advantage in that I often just throw up a link to someone else’s work and say “Hey, this is cool!” and call it a post, plus I at least have my “Skimpy Sunday” feature where I just throw up some pretty men. You actually sit and think and write, which is a lot harder and time-consuming.



Do you think the vast improvement in your life has something to do with your dwindling blog output? If blogging was therapy for you, then the dissipation of your issues has made “therapy” less vital.

GP: Maybe. . . Definitely the early years of the blog were partly about working out what felt like a serious trauma. It probably felt that way, because it was. You’re right that my life is so much better now and I don’t need to “vent”.

Mostly, though, I think the slow down in blogging is that my current life has also left me absurdly busy. I’m lucky if I have time to read my favorite blogs, much less write something. Big Midwestern University kids itself if it thinks that having a dual appointment is anything other than double the work of a regular appointment. They then wonder why they lose so many faculty to other universities.

But I also do have fewer creative ideas than I once did. Somewhere around the second or third year, I put a lot of thought into ways to make the blog grow or change. Maybe my creative energies are going elsewhere (like NERPoD: The Sequel) these days.

BN: I once wrote creatively a lot: poetry, short stories, etc. My ambition was to write the Great American Fantasy Novel. But my period of greatest creativity was when I was in high school suffering from major depression; as I’ve grown older and generally happier, the urge and ability to write has pretty much evaporated.

Joe. My. God. and Andy Towle would be my guess for blogging Heidi Klum, BTW, though actually I think RuPaul would be more appropriate. “The time has come for you to blog post FOR YOUR LIFE!” (Have you watched RuPaul’s Drag Race? You really should. This season isn’t as good as last season, though.)

GP: I do like RuPaul’s Drag Race. This season was not quite as good as the first. It disappoints me, too, that the show has tended to subtly discriminate against contestants with an accent. In the first season, Nina Flowers was not given the crown because (according to RuPaul) she had “language issues.” Likewise, I felt like Jessica Wilde was eliminated once she was unable to shill Absolut Vodka in a Midwestern accent.



BN: The second season of RPDR was definitely inferior. The talent level was, overall, lower, and the bitching was just over the top. There’s a difference between being bitchy and being a bitch, and too many went too far over that line this time around.

GP: But to get back to the topic at hand – which I am pretty sure was me -- I write posts that are often quite lengthy. Maybe this is the type of thing that Little Professor refers to as “thinking out loud.” There is some issue that has me thinking (draconian immigration laws; imbalanced school curriculum; whether Jill Munroe could take Pepper Anderson in a cage match) and I am trying out an argument about it.

***


Read Part II tomorrow where Bourgeois Nerd and GayProf discuss secret blog identities, social phobias, and gay marriage. Plus, GayProf will show you how to get coffee rings out of your antique furniture!

Historiann and GayProf Teach It All, Part III: REVOLUTION!

Today Historiann and I finish up our discussion about the U.S. survey class. Together we have already outlined devious ways to undermine the entire nation through our teaching. Won't somebody think of the children?

If you are just joining the discussion, remember to read up on Part I and Part II. All of your friends already read Part I and II. You want to be cool like them, don't you?

***

Historiann: It would still be a Great Leap Forward if Anglophone historians would reorient their teaching, if not their research. Perhaps the best way to alter the center of gravity

GayProf (GP): *coughGravitas*cough*

Historiann: (ignoring GayProf) Perhaps the best way to alter the center of gravity in American history is to change the date of that split between the first and second "halves" of American history. (I put "half" in quotation marks, as someone who teaches a "half" that goes from 1492-1877 and is therefore 385 years in 15 weeks, by comparison to my modern U.S. colleagues who teach a "half" that goes from 1877-2010, or only 133 years in 15 weeks. What can I say? Some Democrat, who thinks that 60 is "half" of 100, must have done the math.)

GP: Our colleagues teaching the History of Asia won’t give us much sympathy in the divide. Remember that they often have to cover several centuries every class session! Sometimes my two-part lecture on the U.S.-Mexican War (which was, you know, less than two years) seems really indulgent in comparison.

Historiann: Let's end the first "half" in 1848, instead of 1877, putting the Mexican War rather than the Civil War and Reconstruction at the center of American history.

GP: Ending in 1848 would be a good start. If the goal was to end the class with the incorporation of tens of thousands Mexicans into the U.S., maybe it would encourage professors to provide a modicum of background on Mexico (and if, as a side effect, that increases the marketability of the Never Ending Research Project of Doom, how could I disagree?). But I worry even then we would just end up with a ra-ra version of the Texas Rebellion.




Maybe we could even end the first section in 1821 with Mexican Independence? Tell me that wouldn’t blow the minds of many historians to think that a “foreign” event could define the cycle of U.S. history! And, yet, it did. Once the wars for independence in Latin America took hold, the U.S. was in a very different place in the global economy. Independence in Latin America meant the U.S. could suddenly exercise its emerging power in ways that were unthinkable in 1780.

Starting the class earlier than the seventeenth century would also be a nice thing to do. It seems like (and the WMQ articles alluded to it as well) that most of the non-Anglo history is given scant attention. A typical first-day lecture usually goes, “There were Native Americans in the hemisphere for tens of thousands of years; but not much happened until Jamestown was founded in 1607!” Or, if you are in a slightly more informed class, “There were Native Americans in the hemisphere for tens of thousands of years; then Columbus sailed in 1492. Then not much happened until Jamestown was founded in 1607!”

Lately I have been toying with the idea of offering a colonial borderlands class. I’m not looking to move over to CEUS, but I feel like Spain’s northern frontier is entirely absent from BMU It’s either teach that or an entire semester devoted to the golden-age of Queen Hippolyta. Really a toss up to me.

Historiann: As Donna Merwick said back in 1994 in her response to Hijiya's article, "to tamper seriously with America's received story of its past is dangerous because it is tampering with a myth. It disturbs the fixed version of the sanctified past that makes the present bearable," (WMQ 51:4, October 1994, 736). Suggesting that the independence movement in another nation or a trumped-up war of imperial aggression, rather than a noble war to end slavery, is at the center of American history certainly would challenge "the sanctified past!"

GP: I also think it has to do with the fact that we (as a profession) never really talk about what purpose the U.S. Survey is supposed to serve. Are we there to provide a backdrop political history? If so, which one(s)? Or are we there to teach basic historical methodologies? Or is our goal to shake up that “sanctified past?” All of these are potentially worthy goals for a survey class.

I personally struggle with the balance between “coverage” and “skills” in all my classes. While I prefer to talk about more “fun” things (like how we understand changing ideas about sexuality through time), I also can’t help feeling that they should know some really basic events and people before they move out of college.

For instance, if my class is going to contemplate the Mexican Revolution as one of the most important events in North American History, I feel like I need to give students at least a basic frame of reference. Like, you know, who Emiliano Zapata was.


Historiann: (Who???)

GP: But, of course, the problem with those types of narratives is that they privilege a pretty darn exclusive group: Men more than women; Whites more than people of color; Heteros more than the queer folk. Spending time on simply establishing who the hell Zapata was means that the soldaderas get cheated. It is much the same issue as how we all fall into the "Parade of Presidents" that you mentioned in the comments of Part I. We know better, yet somehow can't help ourselves. I am conflicted.


Historiann: I agree with you that we never discuss the purpose of the U.S. survey. At least, I can’t recall taking part in a formal conversation about the purpose of survey courses in the fifteen years I’ve been on various History faculties. This may have something to do again with the bruising “culture wars” of previous decades—a lot got said and written that I think embarrassed people in retrospect. (I’ve heard one confession from a culture warrior—with whom I utterly disagree—who told me personally that he regrets some of the things he wrote and said in those days. If I told you who it was, I’d have to kill you, so I’ll take his secret to my grave.) Immediately after 9/11, we had a brief discussion in which the importance of history to the creation of a patriotic citizenry was affirmed. But even then, none of us wanted to be terribly specific about what we’re up to because we all have different ideas and priorities.

GP: See, I don’t really see it as my job to affirm or discredit one’s patriotism. Instead, I think it is my job to provide historical context to our modern concerns as a nation. What students want to do with that once they leave my class (Wave flags, move to Canada, join the Army, start a sensible bistro) is entirely up to them.

What if instead of mandating “U.S. History,” we made the requirement “History of North America” or even “History of the Western Hemisphere (Including the Africa bits everybody always forgets is technically part of this hemisphere)?” We could forgo the nation as an organizing principle entirely.

Of course, there are downsides to that as well. Right now the rush to teach “Global History,” for instance, feels flat to me. It seems those classes are just “Western Civ, Now With China!” rather than really rethinking old structures. But that is another post entirely…

Historiann: What we certainly don’t want to talk about is the ridiculousness of expecting a compulsory history class of two quarters or one semester to cure historical ignorance in all of its many forms.



GP: True, but it would be nice if we could market our classes like they were a snakeoil cure. “Take Dr. GayProf’s Patented Chicano/a History Class – Cures All: Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Scurvy, Billousness, and Dropsy. Satisfied Customers Feel Less Ignorant After Just One Dose! Goes Down Easy – Great for Young or Old!”

Historiann: If various states of the union, or universities, or liberal arts colleges actually thought American history was important, they’d require more than a one-semester dose. What we’re left with in the popular discourse is the insistence that U.S. history is vitally important for everyone to know, and the injunction that we (the History professors) are doing it all wrong. (A former mentor of mine used to call this the “history is too important to be left to the historians” point of view.

GP: That’s so true. We don’t have a hard time convincing either the political Left or Right that people should know history. They are just at odds in deciding what history they really want people to know.

Historiann: Maybe it’s my Midwestern low-church WASP heritage of conflict-avoidance, but this state of affairs (call it détante) is better than the projectile insults and name-calling of the kulturkampf. Let’s just all teach what we want to teach, and let others teach what they want to teach. Let a thousand flowers bloom, in other words. (Or as we say here on the plains: “it’s your affair, and none of my own.”)



GP: Yes, I want to echo that. I am not interested in establishing a formal curriculum or dictating what must be taught. Still, I’d like to think that most people want to be more inclusive in their classes (I’m in a “People are Basically Good” sort of mood -- Or at least, “Historians are Basically Good” sort of mood). The problem is that they either have never thought about it (because they, themselves, were never taught in an inclusive way) or because they don’t know how to go about it.

Historiann: That doesn’t mean busybodies like you and me can’t point out who’s being left out of the dominant U.S. history narratives, of course, and why it’s problematic.

GP: And we still get to judge them, right?

Historiann: By all means. Over cocktails, of course!