Remember I said in the previous post that gay and lesbian books sell like little hotcakes? Well, the Radical's new featured book (which I am taking on my weekend retreat to the country house of another historian) is a good example. If you are, just now, choosing a dissertation topic, read this book, because it demonstrates how you can make choices (even as a graduate student, the time where it seems all choices have been made for you!) that make your life more pleasant and possibly more lucrative. Karen Krahulik's Provincetown represents the following good choices:1. Choosing a fun summer resort as the place to do your research. Can't beat that with a stick. It's almost like being a Europeanist, but without having to read bad handwriting in your second language.
2. A queer book topic that queers will buy and read in large numbers. If you can find any of the remaining queer bookstores, you will see a lot of academic stuff on the shelves that will be purchased by non-academics, often by people with no college or high school degree at all who are voracious readers. Speculation on why this is so may appear in another post, but it has something to do with a long period of time when knowing anything about any kind of homosex required research on the part of those coming out, since all information about perverse sexuality was withheld by the state, and by those agents of the state, schools and parents. And don't forget that bookstores, even post-Stonewall, were one place where queers of any age could meet each other and have actual sex. Then maybe read about it too.
3. A book about a summer resort which anyone who lives in, summers in or visits will want to buy and/or give as a house present and/or take home as a souvenir. You could probably extend that to all of Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. And when you think of the number of academics who summer in those places, what a way to get a book into the hands of people who might learn to appreciate you. I mean, wow.
4. A book about a place that most cultural and literary historians know is important, but that no one had yet devoted the time to write a community study of.
5. A short book. Thank you, Karen. Would that other people were more like you.
If you like Karen's book and want to get email from her regularly, go to the Committee on Lesbian and Gay History website (CLGH) and join this affiliate of the American Historical Association. Karen is the chair and corresponding secretary. A lifetime membership is only $150: you can buy a yearly membership for a piddling amount that, annoyingly, you will have to renew every year for another, less-piddling amount. But $150 is a steal, when you consider that a lifetime membership to the Organization of American Historians costs ten times that sum.
Or less of a steal, when you consider that last year the lifetime membership cost $100, but how could you have known? Stop berating yourself and write the check, for God's Sake. And *do not* compare this sum to the fact that in 1885 a lifetime membership to the AHA cost $25, and an annual membership cost $5. One imagines that the Founding Fathers weren't sure the AHA would last. Imagine how clever people like Frederick Jackson Turner felt by 1900! Well, you can feel the same way by joining CLGH now.
Posts
6 comments:
I am definitely buying this one! It looks great.
And thanks for your IHE comment.
What do you think about AIP's having been denied tenure by the Advisory Board at Zenith?
I'm not sure what the P stands for, but if you are referring to my colleague in Asian-American literatures, it's a fucking scandal.
R
Yeah, I'm referring to your colleague in ALIT. His last name is Punzalan. Why do you think the Advisory Board voted him down after he'd gotten unanimously backed by his home department of English, given the fact that Korda and Rushdy (both tenured in English) were on that same Advisory Committee? Do you think it's motivated by a lack of commitment on the part of "Zenith" to Asian American Studies, Queer Studies, queer faculty, and faculty of color, as many students are trying to portray it, or did he just not make the cut? Please elaborate on this. I think I speak on behalf of all your students when I say we'd like an "insider's" perspective on the issue.
His *middle* name is Punzalan, which is why I was initially confused about who you were talking about.
Several things you should know: people on Advisory from the candidate's own department are recused from the case, and their places are temporarily taken by others. Another is that this case is not over, so it would not be to my friend and colleague's advantage to be discussing it on line lest I acquire enemies on his behalf. One of the nasty features of tenure is that the most effective work is done by dealing with people privately; public discussion of what are considered confidential matters is generally not tolerated in the culture. Faculty who participate in public discussion are often marginalized, which is something I don't want to be, because I would like to be an effective ally now and in the future.
I don't understand this decision myself, in its logic or details, so I can't tell you why it happened. I hope to understand more in the coming months.
But also -- take a look at my blogger ethic. Speculating about real people and real tenure cases on line is something I can't do, as the liklihood of unintentionally hurting someone else is quite high. You can look up some of my old posts on tenure, and that will pretty much give you an idea of how I am positioned here. But any further discussion should occur off this blog.
I appreciate your interest, and that of the other students. Stay tuned.
Continued the constant accomplished superior of replica Tag Heuer Formula 1 watch , It appearance screw-in watch acme and scratch-resistant azure clear glass. All the hour markers are hand-pressed, altogether bustling out its top adroitness in watch making. The hour, minute easily and the top of the hour markers are coated with bright substance.
Post a Comment