verstehen libre.
Friday, September 05, 2008
I don't really have much to say, but good lord that last post is a bummer and it's time for it to go away now.
I'm back home, semi-officially all moved in to the new place, and jumping into the semester in all of its insane glory. Among other things, I'm going to keep myself plenty busy for the next four months by teaching for two classes of two sections each, taking two classes, and writing this dang prospectus.
Speaking of my prospectus. It is sad and lonely and needs a hug. True, it's going to get a lot of attention in a workshop in MKE next week, but I'm not at all sure that's the kind of attention it needs right now. I really, really hate to go into this workshop with so little specificity around what I really am trying to do with this thing. I guess in some ways that's entirely the point, but the particular circumstances at work here put me at the mercy of a disciplinary perspective that mainstream political science doesn't even begin to take seriously. It's basically just bad fucking news to go in there with an open mind, but an open mind toward this project is exactly what I have and desperately want to explore right now.
This summer definitely debunked a few hunches, which is great, but I'm a bit short on new ones--mostly because I just can't get into the kind of good creative thinky space that generates them. I've been trying in earnest for the past few days, but my jetlag is unusually enduring, and my mind is just very much on other things. I know from experience that one cannot force the thinky-mojo, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. So, yeah. My prospectus and I need hugs, and fewer distractions, and possibly therapy. Instead we're getting pomo-bootcamp with a bunch of geographers. And, again, if I were feeling a little more intellectually capable at the moment, that in itself would be a great opportunity to strengthen my arguments and loudly defend my commitments to my epistemological worldview. As it stands, there's a good chance I'm just going to be annoyed as fuck for several days, avoid the discussions in favor of holing up in my hotel room HST-style with a steady supply of complimentary Schlitz, and wind up with a draft at the end of the weekend that nobody is remotely happy with.
Still. Things could be worse. It's a little mind-boggling to realize that I'll have a draft--however shitty and contentious and methodologically incoherent and empirically confused--by the first day of the semester. In theory, anyway! ¶ 4:46 AM
Speaking of my prospectus. It is sad and lonely and needs a hug. True, it's going to get a lot of attention in a workshop in MKE next week, but I'm not at all sure that's the kind of attention it needs right now. I really, really hate to go into this workshop with so little specificity around what I really am trying to do with this thing. I guess in some ways that's entirely the point, but the particular circumstances at work here put me at the mercy of a disciplinary perspective that mainstream political science doesn't even begin to take seriously. It's basically just bad fucking news to go in there with an open mind, but an open mind toward this project is exactly what I have and desperately want to explore right now.
This summer definitely debunked a few hunches, which is great, but I'm a bit short on new ones--mostly because I just can't get into the kind of good creative thinky space that generates them. I've been trying in earnest for the past few days, but my jetlag is unusually enduring, and my mind is just very much on other things. I know from experience that one cannot force the thinky-mojo, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. So, yeah. My prospectus and I need hugs, and fewer distractions, and possibly therapy. Instead we're getting pomo-bootcamp with a bunch of geographers. And, again, if I were feeling a little more intellectually capable at the moment, that in itself would be a great opportunity to strengthen my arguments and loudly defend my commitments to my epistemological worldview. As it stands, there's a good chance I'm just going to be annoyed as fuck for several days, avoid the discussions in favor of holing up in my hotel room HST-style with a steady supply of complimentary Schlitz, and wind up with a draft at the end of the weekend that nobody is remotely happy with.
Still. Things could be worse. It's a little mind-boggling to realize that I'll have a draft--however shitty and contentious and methodologically incoherent and empirically confused--by the first day of the semester. In theory, anyway! ¶ 4:46 AM
