WSCA Conference

So I realized I had never really been to an academic conference before this weekend. I had been to the mini Black History Month Conference and the Peace Prize forum at Luther, I went to the Big Gay Conference two years in a row-but it was mostly just party-time and anger inducing. But this weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Western States Communication Association Conference. It was great because most everyone is from the West and thus and the conference itself was in Colorado only an hour away from where I live.

I was able to see some really great presentations on research being done in the field of communication studies (and some not so good too.) Most of the panels, paper presentations I attended were on my favorite aspect of communications: Performance Studies and many of them also focused on the "new queer studies" or the second generation of queer studies which does a lot more with multiple and overlapping productions of identities instead of mainly focusing on sexual orientation and gender presentation. Much of the work I saw was by graduate students many in my own department doing really interesting and progressive work interrogating "others" through interrogating the self. Mostly this gave me some hope for having a career in academia and being able to do good work even as a graduate student.

But what was most helpful were seeing the responses to papers delivered by grad students and professors alike (which happened to be administered by my performance studies professon Dr. Calafell.) Some major themes I saw specifically in regards to performance studies s being accountable to others and to the discipline of performance itself. The most heavily critiqued individuals were those who did not use performance studies scholars in their citations on papers about performance studies. In my mind this is a total disregard for the people that came before who have put their hearts, minds, and souls (through writing, performance etc...)on the line and it is somewhat disrespectful to not include their work.

It calls to mind Bowman's piece on "Killing Dillinger: Mystory" where he critiques those people who may dabble in performance studies but will not take into account the history, the repercussions and more generally what is at stake for performance scholars who engage in the kind of work that uses the self as a site of interrogation. He in fact critiques people who dabble in performance saying they won't even stick around long enough to find out the future of the discipline because they do not have the kind of investment in the work as do those who are strongly committed to the work.

There was also critique about what actually constitutes performance studies work which, is I believe related to the aforementioned point. As Ellis and Bochner say, "Not everyone can do autoethnography let alone do it well," nor ca everyone do performance studies and performative writing/ethnography. Not that I don't think people should not try-they just need to be honest about their work and credit those who came before-including performance scholars, feminists of color, feminists, and queer theorists. It is not performance studies to simply use the "I" first person in the paper-or to incorporate parts of the self into one's paper that is solely based on the work of rhetoric scholars. This lacks the reflexivity that performance studies so eagerly wants to engage with.

Performance is so much more than that. First as I see it, it takes a deep level of commitment to the discipline. This involves several things but one of them means facing rejection, facing the fact that other parts of the larger discipline are going to think performance is a joke and that looking at the self has no credibility. But if one is committed they see the value that this kind of work can do-seeing that it has the potential to not only change the academy but more largely implicates the world to change also. Two it means knowing and crediting those who came before, risked before and have been vulnerable before. I believe this means having a good historical basis for understanding the discipline-understanding how performance originated and paying homage not only lip service to those who have grappled with these issues before. Third it means a deep commitment to the other (Madison, Alcoff). This means being committed to fairly representing the other through our work including intimate others (Ellis) who we are deeply connected to. This means holding ourselves accountable and rising our own integrity in the ways we write about others and take up issues about representing the other in our work. This means not making fun of people even if we disagree with the way in which they handle themselves in certain situations. Performance scholarship should never be used to get back at someone, instead it should be used as a tool to open up dialog. This moves me to my fourth observation about performance. It should always be opening up possibilities for dialog not shutting them down. In this way performance is especially useful as a pedagogical tool. While dealing with controversial subjects performance should seek to hear fro multiple and variant positions and never silence anyone. In this way in my brain I see that performance is directly connected with feminist and queer epistemologies which, desire to uncover marginalized voices while being committed to an invitational dialogic perspective for engaging in conversations about controversies. My fifth observation is that by investing in the other we put ourselves at stake. This means we risk the self, making the self open and vulnerable for people to see and at times criticize. By implicating ourselves we show our commitment to risk for both ourselves and others. In sharing our own personal experiences we invite others to share of themselves and thus, we become vulnerable to one another thus, implicating ourselves in the work making us accountable.

It was good to see the critiques of people's work because it shows that other more advanced scholars want to help those of us who are new to the discipline. They want us to succeed and do things well-they want us to open ourselves up and make us think harder more critically, to stretch ourselves. And they do this while being generally supportive and showing an ethic of care, which is greatly appreciated.

To Be or Not To Be...Angry that is...

So I have thinking about several things to blog about and what I have settled on is this. It involves my class yesterday (not the performance one) and a guy in it and a conversation we had. I was mostly puzzled by the conversation unsure exactly what was happening and yet at the same time I became extremely irritated by what the convo yielded.

It all started because one guy H.L Goodall in his book Writing the New Ethnography said, "Voice is derivative." Basically he meant we pick up our voice specifically as writers but also as human beings trough the voices we hear and read of others. This makes a lot of sense to me. For example a childhood friend of mine was born in the south, she had a thic southern accent. Her parents also spoke with thick accents. When she moved to Colorado and met me all of a sudden I started realizing that I at certain times spoke with a southern accent. I would say "I'm fixing maself somethin ta eat." Or "Ya'll" made an appearance in my vocab. All of this was derived from my social situation, I derived my voice from the voices around me. So it is with authors-often when I read something like Foucault, I will try to imitate his and other critical theorists in my writing (I honestly think it makes me sound smarter and more learned.) Other times I may just incorporate certain elements of these theorists writings into my own, like stringing adjectives together. Nonetheless I feel like it makes sense that our voices would come from the external and become something we internalize-and honestly I do not see how this is not a feminist notion-it is in fact very feminist as far as new ways of defining feminism go.

Back to my story, guy in my class who I will name Fred although that is really not a good name choice because Fred appears stand-offish and old fashioned whereas the man I speak of is actually very warm-hearted with very good intentions. I feel like most of the time when Fred talks he wants to appear smart, educated and also empathetic. He likes to quote feminist rhetoricians when he talks in class and basically likes to throw around the term feminist to prove that he is IN FACT, sensitive to feminist issues and causes. Guess what Fred I've read those books too-taken feminist rhetoric classes and read a shit ton of theory-I mean really you wanna go with me? I like Fred, most of the time as much as I like most of the straight white dudes in my class who like to try and take me to task on issues of feminism, race, and queer on a monthly basis.

My saving grace is that in that class there is a Cool California Blonde. I am going to call her Tiffany although this is really a bad name for her because Tiffany sounds like the name of a bimbo, or at best an airhead and actually Tiffany is one of the smartest people I know. Often she and I make eye contact throughout class (we are not much for social friends) but in the classroom setting I am so glad to have her presence there because I know that most of the time she is thinking exactly what I am thinking. All my complaints of people not getting it are stifled in her because she gets it. Maybe not all of it but neither do I so I really can't complain.

So an interesting dynamic happened yesterday in regards to Fred, Tiffany and I. Fred posed te question, in his sort of pretentious, look at me I'm a feminist watch me shed my knowledge sort of way, "Isn't what Goodall is saying against the feminist notions of voice of trying to unleash the voice, to give the voice of the marginalized a place to speak. I mean isn't that the primary concern of feminists is to give voice to those who aren't heard."

Gut reaction, "Huh?" puzzled look adorning my face. How is what Goodall saying not feminist and where did you learn your feminist theory Fred-some 70's drawing room with a bunch of white women sitting around examining their vaginas talking about how they are oppressed?

Tiffany must've been thinking the same thing because she raised her hand and said, "I think the whole point of this is that people of color, women, queer people and all of those who intersect multiple identities are able to get in touch with their voices more easily and I don't think Goodall's argument is not feminist just because he says it is derivative."

My professor also sort of chimed in and said something to the affect of there have been times when ideas of voice were more internal and that they came from places inside.

I'm still confused. I don't know exactly what Fred, Tiffany or the Professor are saying. All I know is that I don't like the conversation it doesn't seem necessary or productive and it definitely seems built on archaic notions of what feminism is or has been.

I interject. "I think Goodall is advocating for recognizing positionality and I don't understand what is not feminist about this? And also when you talk about the (emphasis mine) feminist perspective of voice of whom are you speaking?"

Fred stutters, "Well although their are different versions of feminism like womanism for African Americans etc...a primary concern is voice and hearing voices we don't always hear right? I mean that's the point of standpoint theory."

Wrong. wrong wrong wrong. Standpoint theory? really? Great theory, love it, now lets keep going. Lets push those notions further. That's what I see feminism doing these days. We are no longer solely concerned with marginalized groups but how power relations are maintained, negotiated, and performed on a daily basis. It is no longer simple enough to say margin and center because there is too much complexity in the human experience to limit it to that. We are all margins and centers at different moments in time, history, and geographical and spatial location. I do not totally disagree with Fred, but women's/feminist/and gender studies and feminism more generally is also concerned with much more than consciousness raising as they once were during the second wave. While I am in debt to those who do and have done this work I would say that feminism as a discipline and a movement has been much too influenced by queer theory, critical race studies, and global social movements to so that we are concerned with power relations and social structures and a piece of this is yes hearing the voices of those who are marginalized. And a part of that is unleashing derivative voices. It is no longer simply giving or hearing voice (although this is really never simple) but understanding voices in larger structures and contexts, not hearing the voices for the voices sake. and I love hearing voices, I love reading voices, but they don't speak to me because they come from this internal harmonious woman place, but because they are social voices in social contexts and as Goodall says they fill the "gaps in my soul." But can I be critical of those voices-yes-definitely. I love Audre Lourde but her piece on "The Erotic" makes me uncomfortable as shit. I still love her and it because they challenge me-it is the challenge that I truly love.

At that moment I start to scribble in my notebook. This is why Women's Studies programs are in such contention. On one hand they are fighting to be legitimized to be taken seriously because guys like Fred think that feminists are (while maybe a positive stereotype) are still mainly concerned with unleashing the inner goddesses voices of the marginalized. And yet at the same time there is so much push to eliminate women's studies programs because they place women and gender too much as a focus when we should be concerned with all aspects of identity and the way different identities produce and maintain each other. Another perspective, women's studies is no longer needed, we're equal now right? Why aren't there men's studies programs? There are just look at who dominates the writing in the majority of other disciplines as well as the fact that implicit in understanding women as a valid line of inquiry we must also study men.

I realize that I have gotten defensive at a time and place I maybe shouldn't have. I should have been more dialogic, I shouldn't have looked and sounded so upset and angry. But he was criticizing my baby, my passion. At the end of class Tiffany came up to me, "Thank You," and tapped my desk. I guess it was worth it to be angry-even if for only that.

Commiting Social Justice Through Research

Is a commitment to social justice through research necessary and more importantly is it possible? The point of my class on performance is to say yes to both of these questions as the simple and easy response. Do I want to believe-yes...do I commit with faith-not yet-I want to but my cynicism compels me to investigate further. Supposedly performance, understanding that all of life is performance and thus a careful negotiation and also presenting results of research through performance is a way to commit to a social justice, or critical paradigm. I so desire to see-to believe.

This weekend for my qualitative research methods class (not to be confused with my performance ethnography class) I had to read an article on incest and the supposed way that research interviews can be a transfomative process and thus, create social justice. I don't like to compare, I don' think it is an extremely useful tool in the toolbox to have as it does not allow a thing to be a thing on its own, but only has validity through the way it looks juxtaposed with other things. This only reifies binary ways of thinking and looking at things (i.e. we know what man is by understanding what a woman is not-a complex comparison but a comparison nonetheless). Given my current context, two methods courses; one trying to teach me ways of doing that are somewhat normative while still allowing some freedom for creativity and expression and the other, a complete break-down of traditional methods, ways of seeing, and ways of presenting materials found. I bring up the article on incest because I do not think the way it was presented did it the justice it really and truly needed. This article would have benefited much from an engagement with performance ethnography, a combination of both performative writing and actual performance of the women and men's stories dealing with incest. That would have been social justice or at least an attempt. Instead the researchers provided us with some mail in questionaire data about interviews they conducted previously. In this process I saw little commitment to a co-constructed co-performance. The researchers portrayed little connection to their subjects, there was little bodily connection and no bodily responsibility. All things that dealing with social justice and especially something so traumatic involving the body should have present.

As it was the article was presented as a typical research study, but said that it was an attempt to create social justice because it gave victims a voice, a place to speak and be heard by a researcher who had experienced incest herself. Sounds good right? I thought so too at first. But I kept waiting for the bodily interactions, kept waiting to hear the stories. I didn't. Granted I think this piece specifically focused on methods (focus group and individual interviews) and not so much the content-but given the content something as traumatic as incest how can the researcher simply allude to this pain, this awful experience, but use the data as material to publish a methods article. This makes it seem as though the researcher has no responsibility to the people she interviewed to use their testimonies in the way they wanted it to be used-to help people (to really do social justice.)

On top of this the idea of transformation of the research participant, the abused, the victim, the survivor was made apparently clear. Interviews done to give voice to the participants was a "transformative experience." Was it not also transformative for the researcher who had also survived incest, or those researchers who did not suffer incest abuse-weren't they transformed? Seems that it would be hard for those stories, those testimonies not to make any sort of impact. This methodological process seemed to lack lack reflexivity and definitely did not view the knowledge gained as contingent upon both researcher and researched. And this process really seemed to other the victims. While I would never want to imply that something like speaking wouldn't be transformative, when it is presented as so grotesquely one-sided (that only the researched people are transformed) they become othered-taboo, social pariahs, something to avoid. And it seems to imply that the researched need to be transformed, instead of meeting people somewhere in a contingent middle or grey space, the expectation seemed to be that healing needed to happen on the part of the researched in order for them to somehow be whole. It seems an experience with incest would be transformative in itself-I know my own experiences with abuse have been. I would hate it to be implied that I needed to be further transformed through a research interview process in order to be whole. Although I still at the same time respect that it could be-what about those that did not feel the process was transformative?

So I turn to performance-since this article I feel lacked a bodily sense of responsibility to the "other" the incest survivor, the research participant. What may have better served them? First in performance studies one does not physicially have to get on a stage and perform-using performative writing techniques can also suffice. Being committed to social justice in langage choice, and other forms of presentation where power relations are minimized is helpful.

Using both physical performance and performative writing can create the ultimate amalgamation of re presentation methods to engage in ethnography and the construction of the other. But it takes the responsibility of the researcher and a commitment to the other to use their words as they desire and to research them in the most ethical way possible. This means bodies involved in trauma have to be accountable to one another and even if a researcher s body has not been subjected that they approach the situation as Pollock says, with "empathic empathy." The researcher must approach the subject with empathy, that both the futures of the researcher and researched are contingent upon one another, thus the researcher can no longer approach situations with an objective lens but must approach with a critical mindset to do social justice. Especially with trauma survivors. Do use my words to tell a social justice story, do be reflexive about the work, do recognize limitations in research methods and data, but do not use my words to imply I need to be transformed. My transformation will be personal and social in my own time on my own terms, I don't care how caring the interview situation supposedly is.

And part of the researcher's responsibility is to write in their own bodily knowledge. Not to make the entire piece about the self of the researcher(Madison)-but to understand the complex relationship between participants and researchers, between self and other (Corey). This is where Tami Spry's words about the "performative-I" really seem to ring true. She says, "I offer the phrase performative-I as a researcher positionality that seeks to embody the copresence of performance and ethnography as these practices have informed, reformed, and coperformed one another..."(340). She then goes on to detail the performative-I position is a positionality affected both by her personal life and her research but that it explicates her inability to either live inside or escape her physical body. Part of her healing was to write from that space between-the only space she could, which was her body. She writes about the knowledge she learned from her body when dealing with her study of healing among the Mapuche people as well as the bodily knowledge needed to survive the death of her child. The body is for the most part void in the article on incest, which is suprising given the content, which is placing the body and bodily harm as the focal point of research. How can the researchers forget their own body, their own sites of pain, grief and frustration with reading about others' pain and trauma. we must write from our bodies as we cannot escape them as much as we might truly wish to. Is it not the responsibility of the researcher to not maintain neutrality since this is absolutely never possible. We can never rid ourselves of our bodies and thus we cannot rid ourselves of our positionalities, so shouldn't we use those things to our advantage. I do not want to tell someone my stories of abuse and assault to someone cold and stone-faced with no reaction. I want someone to want to know my story in a way that they try to feel my pain and that they are upset with the ways I was treated. I want to hear the anger at such injustice. I want to hear that the socially constructed sexism, patriarchy, and domination that men hold over women is something the researcher is not ok with. If I can't hear this I will not want to share. And I do not want as a reader to see this kind of neglect for the body, this neglect to the humans who have shared the intimate portraits of their lives-it is unfair and it is not right.

Life as Perfromance and Performance Art

So in light of all the performance reading I have been doing specifically about Conquergood I have asked my professor to let my blog be my "archive of feeling" for the class (read: journal). I may eventually do a spin-off blog directly about my performance class-but I can't decide if trying to compartmentalize is really a good idea or not. I mean in the performance of myself, my multiple, shifting and contesting identities as Conquergood suggests, are not stable or fixed, it would make sense that sometimes I would write about performance-while other times I would not. So even as I write myself and my body into my blog I find myself having trouble articulating who I am.

Part of this is about my love and desire for queering things, and when I use queer I do not use it as an umbrella term for "the gays" as it so often gets minimized to but as a more broad term for those who do things in non-normative ways who believe that their identities, sexual and otherwise have a level of contingency upon given social contexts, circumstances, surroundings, negotiations etc...(look at me trying to be all Foucauldian stringing my synonyms together.) I like to use queer as a verb not a noun. And in saying this I still must except my positionality as a white, middle class, femme bi-sexual lesbian, who enjoys school, blogging and cheesy television shows. But I like Linda Alcoff's suggestion, that identity not be an over-determination of the spaces we occupy in the world and the behaviors associated but that simply put our position affects how we see. It is not the be-all end-all (there's a platitude for ya) of understanding but it simply gives us different ways of looking and being in the world. But within this we all have agency to a certain extent to enact social justice through whatever means we can. I mean it isn't as though our positionality is essential or innate or something ridiculous like that. It changes, fluctuates, depending on my social context and sometimes my mood.

But this doesn't help with the writing of my blog, or the understanding of how to do my performance. I mean my fingers can move the keys and I can write about things I seem to know about and truly want to understand, but I still do not know who I am. I can pick at my face to the point of bleeding hoping to reach an answer-I don't and all I have is blood and puss. This is gross-but this is the truth. This is my body.

I know my positionality, I know that my positionality changes. I see it change. When I am with the women I date who happen to be more masculine in appearance and stature I immediately notice the looks and stares we both get. My body juxtaposed against theirs says it pretty clearly. Because bodies are political and as spoken word artist Alix Olson says, "At least lesbian bodies are political." Because when my body and her body are together occupying a shared space (like a dinner table in a restaurant full of heterosexual couples the stares "their" bodies give mine and hers say, "What are you?" "Why is she with that?". "She could get a man, she's pretty enough." "She looks normal, how is it that she can like women...and that kind of woman?" "I mean it's cool if she wanted to make out with a hot chick I wouldn't have a problem with it, I'd watch, maybe they'd let me join in on the fun." When I am with a more masculine woman of color the stares become even more intense. "Why would she do that doesn't she have it hard enough as it is [in reference to being a person of color and dressing like a boy]?"

When I am in this situation my perceived heterosexuality is challenged and that is when I become gay. Before this I was a heterosexual woman as conceived by our heterosexist society. It isn't just with lovers/partners it happened with my best friend too. When I walked with her in our small college town in Iowa completely platonically I became a lesbian because that is how she was perceived. "Dykes!" they would yell as they drove by us, those high school boys in their white suv. That's what I mean by contingent-when I walk with my more feminine looking friends I don't get the same yells or stares. "They're all straight," because that's the problem with linking up gender performance and sexual identity in a "heterosexual matrix" if they don't look like women trying to be men than they must be straight women desiring men. If they only knew...

And I say I am queer, but I question that too. I mean I shop at J-Crew, I wear make-up (eyeliner is my favorite), I carry a purse, and when I walk down a street nobody would ever have to know. I could pass for straight. But I don't want to. I am pretty open with anyone you ask, "Yes, I am indeed open to loving anyone, it just so happens that most of the people I love happen to have vaginas (it is not however, a requirement.)" That too goes for friends and lovers.

I like women who look different than me. Am I homophobic? I can't imagine I am-but is my desire for difference somehow interlaced with notions about heterosexism and heterosexuality. My friend who is more masculine once suggested this about herself in reference to dating another more masculine and possibly ftm trans person. These thoughts all infiltrate my space. Maybe that's why I am queer-because the women I date and befriend are not male or female, man or woman, they occupy a space somewhere in between and yet completely different and outside at the same time.

I recognize what this means for me, I will be seen as the straight one. I am not really a lesbian-I am a bisexual, a confused silly school girl going through a phase. But I am queer-I too see my masculine and feminine traits and those that defy both of those to create something entirely new and fantastic. I am as much queer as those women in suits, or track jackets with popped collars and sideways trucker hats, even if my appearance might not suggest it. Another friend of mine once wrote about gender in her blog as being so much more than appearance but about gender play. About the way we negotiate and perform gender in social spaces WITH OTHER PEOPLE!! It is not just the way we look, I know that, than why does it matter so much to me? I am not really a lesbian, I don't look the way lesbians look. I must be a bi-sexual, an unspeakable, "she'll end up with a man one day..." I don't like femme lesbian or bi-sexual as labels, but as an identity expression I create as a daily negotiation-yeah I can live with that. I can occupy the shit out of that space-just watch me!

And how can I write this? How does one articulate that I am a daily negotiation always contingent upon my circumstance, my surrounding, my situation. I am a fractured whole-I do not actually believe I was ever whole to begin with, but instead I am actively creating different pieces of myself everyday that will probably never complete me-I don't want to be completed, I want to be challenged and complemented. And how do I write this. How do I write fluidity into such a static medium. The way I just did? Is that good enough-explain where I am coming from and the rest will tell itself in a way? How do I write my change in a way that is compelling, truthful and honest. How do I write myself into my text, when I do not know who or what I am? I may have a sense of self but this sense of self is completely unstable and at times completely lashes out at me! How do I write this? How do I perform this... Maybe I just did...

Performance Studies...for the people by the people

In light of all the really interesting things I have been reading about performance studies and performance ethnography (Conquergood et.al) I have decided to blog about it in a performance autoethnography style...who knows maybe this will turn into my paper for this week...

I look a the stack of papers I have to get through. There are a lot. Two classes this quarter-both about research methods. I never imagined I would be taking one methods course (none were required in my previous M.A. program-I should have known then right ;)!) let alone multiple methods courses at the same time. I mean I signed up for them-maybe I didn't know the class was a class theorizing about performance and maybe I thought it was more of a how-to. I mean I am not extremely creative-I'm not artsy-the most artistic thing I do is make cd compilations-good ones- but still. Lots of reading in both clases, some writing too. It shouldn't be too bad. If I can just get through Barthes, "The Pleasure of the Text," which reminds me of something painful and yet beautiful at the same time, like touching hot wax, it burns but I just keep wanting more.

(Btw) I just ate a cookie that tastes like marshmallows-that scares me because I do not eat marshmallows, I am not a vegan but the idea of gelatin really makes me feel ill. I have gotten most of my friends to stop eating gelatin even if they still eat meat because the idea that animals are produced for their connective muscle fibers to make nasty gelatinous substances is more grotesque than eating meat to them. I have to admit both sicken me slightly, but that is beside the point-right?

Back to my stack of papers. I pick up the first Conquergood-I read the opening lines. Immeadiately, I think, O.k. so you want to challenge normative modes of knowledge by offering this different methods of presenting your data-like performance-spoken word, art, daily activities like quilting, cooking, recipes..." Hasn't this been done before? Isn't this exactly what Alice Walker is advocating in the book, "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" and isn't Audre Lourde advocating for reintroducing the body into the academy in "The Pleasure of the Erotic." They are not new concepts but of course white, straight (I am assuming) guy comes in and says it so veryone has to listen right? I don't want to be this negative-I swear it is the feminist in me-she likes to be a pessimist-she isn't exactly sure how to be any other way.

But I read on knowing that my initial reactions are far too simplistic he must have something more to say-something more to offer. And he does...Conquergood suggests that performance can challenge dominant ways of knowing and can challenge the way we do things in the academy. He is wanting to revolutionize the praxis/theory divide and give us new ways of knowing and opening up the everyday (ritualized) activities we engage in to be valued knowledge, that those kinds of knowledge are just as worth studying and knowing as something extremely positivistic. And how does he suggest this happen? By introducing the body back into our study. That our bodies can somehow hold us more accountable to the cultures we study than writings on a paper. That our bodily knowledge is undervalued and we need to integrate it back into what we do.

That's kind of big-HUGE if you think about it. Here is a man coming from privilege-he could be happy just leaving things as they are-goddess knows he's the kind of person that would really benefit from keeping such a system in place. But he wants to change it and not only that but he wants to do it ethically. He doesn't want to be the paternalistic hand of the father changing ways of thinking in the people that he studies-he doesn't want to go native, or save the natives, he just wants the body to be reintegrated into the way we know and then used to rearticulate the knowledge we have learned.

This is fascinating to my feminist side. The body which is so often on the female side of the male/female, man/woman, masculinity/femininity divide that for a "man" to suggest using the body to know seems completely foreign and outrageous (in the good way-I am feeling another candle wax moment coming on...). And I hate dichotomies-they do very little for anybody but limit them and express a system of language that dominates and benefits from a dichotomy. But as a "classically trained women's studies minor" we have to recognize the dichotomies before we dismantle and disrupt them. So maybe that is also what Conquergood is doing- queering the notions of scholarship and at the same time challenging traditional notions of the masculine and the feminine...maybe not but I thinkt he argument could be made.

But at the same time and my main critique is while he is advocating this totally radical thing-where did I read about it? A freaking peer reviewed journal article. Because we still have to value some of that traditional stuff and still do somethings in a traditional and normative way. It sucks. It's like here's a great idea-now if we could just get over that hump of will it ever be accepted? Which it won't not int he radical revolutionary way it needs to-but change is slow and a process and I am willing to wait it out-I mean I have to.

What else is there for me to do? But sit here and think about these things and try to offer what little I have-which happens to be myself. My brain, my thoughts, my insights. Because I know that for me without autoethnographical performances like those of Alix Olson and Staceyanne Chin I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for hearing those words of pain, and joy and taking those into my body letting the words consume me until they couldn't anymore and I just had to break down and cry because I did not think there was anything else I could do. Is that bodily enough for you?
--
I can just imagine her performing this at Michigan orange pants, tank top, wild hair maybe in two pigtails every word inciting some sort of movement with the occasional pause- for oh what's the word-i guess to work up her momentous orgasmically inclined potential...

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Staceyann Chin's FALL AWAKENING (for sloane)

after too many movies
about honor

and faith
and the fury of time/the hours
unwrap moments for me to fill

the monotone hiss of the heater
has begun

new skin is shedding the nights I spent
aching for things not promised

wishes and horses and all that manure

the crisp edges of real time
injects itself drunken into me

vein and artery
arrow and artistry
my fingers click precise

not trained or systematic
they type inclined to carpal tunnel

syndromes
honing in on old age and raw certainty

and me only worried that my eggs
will never bring themselves to fruition

but life can mark itself on a body
many ways

sperm and life
and being a lesbian is more complicated
than I would ever have envisioned

inside my head
I was coming to America
to laugh

and live a little
leave some of me to giggle
small parts dissolving into cackles
I though I would last longer than this restless devil caressing
inch long bruises across my identity

what the fuck is identity
in the face of all we endure

existence is inane

necessary
and without reason

no logic sticks to the ribcage
of death
and my voice is finding itself
blue
and yellow light breaking new skin all over my solitary bed

my limbs
can rest naked

missing the familiar
but aching less with the hours

thank God/or fate/or luck foe these horrible movies

for this book I am tapping into shape

no matter what you say

assault
survival

almost/almost survival

almost rape

such windows were made to be seen through
tall glass structures
erected upright for efficiency

and me sleeping un the nude
so the cold autumn sun can lick my stomach
my face unfolding to find morning
blinking at me

nothing feels as good
as my own belly
uncontained, my hips, my ass curved and kissed gently by the blanket
we slept under

in Washington Heights
and here

I can smile now
thinking of you

inhale the memory of your beautiful hands
seeking a clarity
elsewhere

and me
searching the bed for the phone
or a pen
or the remote
for one more movie

and me smiling open at the possibilities
opened up again

not so long ago

my hands were happily tied to yours

perfect
your fingers knew me

languid
Sunday mornings

sex and sleeping and the simple rote
of kisses
awakening

smiles
hidden/self-conscious

you were always too conscious of how much this meant

in another life
we will look back

and weep at our innocence
our rash politics

our wild hope against hope

we could have lasted
and did

almost two years
and I can smile at us now

new rings
promised under skies
and rain jackets at 2 a.m.

my feminist self
has never felt so reflected

almost a foot above me
you towered

and I laughed at how small you seemed
wrapped-up in my arms

you made me into a giant
small hands
and feet

I was always amazed
at the height of me

lying next to you the world seemed smaller
than my fears

my hesitation
I wish I would have jumped for you

higher than I did
not out of regret
but because you would have known

that I wanted to

you were beautiful
are beautiful

without clothes
and I challenge the looking glass
here in my bedroom

noon has never been so far
away
rocks the rhythm of a night without tears

willow trees bend stunning
in my imagination
they weep and whisper sweet nothings

nothing can make me
take back how much we loved each other

love each other
even now

a crass warp in our time
synchronized

we could have tested the parameters
of forever

but the edges would not have been
visible

the skies would have been endless
such excess
may have compromised

the way I love you now

rejoice

not in what could have been

but what was
flesh
morning
cafes

love and hope blooming radical in out chests
we nested
each lifetime pocketed

finite
in our hands

forever
was a thing to be trusted

and I giggle now
pleased with the memories fluttering comfortable
against my ribs

Adam can go fuck himself

I wanted Eve- I always want Eve
the apple tempting rose-like against her cheek

the meek shall inherit the earth
but I wanted your flesh

revelled in it human
frail

I found you
against these odds

twice

and now the future
winds itself spring-like against the Fall

winter is almost here
the winds
the leaves breaking colorful piles and piles of potential

next year
is still a possibility

but today is beating urgent
and am committed to living in the now
--

Fergie...what

So I have liked the songs Big Girls Don't Cry for awhile now. For as heterosexual, as normative, and as possibly and probably exploitative of women as this song is-I am so glad to finally hear a song about a woman who takes control of her life. It's a personal choice to take a risk and try new things and I hate that almost all break-up songs are so sad and from the perspective of the broken up with. It isn't super fun being the breaker either people. And we rarely celebrate women taking control of their own destinies and doing what is best for them and not their family, husband, children, job etc...Of course this contradicts with an earlier post about duty being an admirable trait-but in this case Fergie-I salute you-you made the best coice you could given the situation you were in (Candies underpants and all!) Of course it kind of sucks that it is Fergie who brings us this inner monologue of a chick going through a break-up because she wants to do what is best for herself. And she's going to miss her partner but she needs to do some personal growth too...I like to imagine that someone like Sarah McLachlan is doing this song so that I could actually admit to liking it and not be like a total post-feminist a-hole! Or maybe a nice mountain songstress will do a rendition similar to say "Umbrella..."

So here goes...I like Fergie, I like this song, I am not afraid anymore...

oh and the guy from heroes is in the video and HELLO...he can fly (not in the video but on Heroes...) and I think the song is also kind of about masturbation...which I am all about!!

the video--

--
the lyrics
La Da Da Da Da
The smell of your skin lingers on me now
You're probably on your flight back to your home town
I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and Center, Clarity
Peace, Serenity

[CHORUS:] [I like to scream this part]-emphasis mine...
I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It's personal, myself and I
We've got some straightening out to do
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I've got to get a move on with my life
It's time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry

The path that I'm walking
I must go alone
I must take the baby steps 'til I'm full grown, full grown
Fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they?
And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay

[CHORUS:]
I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It's personal, myself and I
We've got some straightening out to do
[Big Girls Don't Cry lyrics on http://www.metrolyrics.com]

And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I've got to get a move on with my life
It's time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry

Like the little school mate in the school yard
We'll play jacks and UNO cards
I'll be your best friend and you'll be mine Valentine
Yes you can hold my hand if you want to
'Cause I want to hold yours too
We'll be playmates and lovers and share our secret worlds
But it's time for me to go home
It's getting late, dark outside
I need to be with myself and Center, Clarity
Peace, Serenity

[CHORUS]
I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It's personal, myself and I
We've got some straightening out to do
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I've got to get a move on with my life
It's time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry

La Da Da Da Da Da
--

don't make fun of me...too bad

finally...they made a movie about me

Yesterday I received the movie Puccini for Beginners from Netflix. I had been avoiding this movie like the plague because it seemed like it was going to be something ridiculous-all about music I could care less about, with a straight couple falling in love and doing it to opera in the end (BORING!). Then I opened the description and it is actually about a commitment-phobic lesbian who goes through a break-up ends up falling for a guy one night and girl the next and trying to deal with the chaos this can bring up in ones life. Of course the girl and the guy she falls for end up being ex-lovers and it brings to the forefront how small of a place Manhattan really is.

This movie is delightfully funny and brings poignant issues to the forefront of the world, such as what is man, woman, masculinity, femininity, can you be a lesbian and date a man, does the label lesbian (or any other) even matter when it comes to love? And what about marriage and the, "Are we going anywhere" factor-and I don' mean where do you want to eat dinner-although I often find that question complicated enough as it is. And at one point she delivers an amazing speech about marriage being just a patriarchal assumption of the straight people and that of course gay people want to get married because they can't (and although I do not believe in anyone's concept of marriage) I think that she has a point. If someone was telling you you couldn't do something based on who you are (or who you choose to spend time with) you might be more inclined to fight to want to do it too. And that in some way this process of fighting for it is in some way transformative. Don't know if I buy it-but I see her point.

Plus I think I am Alegra-we dress alike, think a like, speak sort of similarly, are self-obsessed and think quite highly of ourselves. And like Bette from the L Word I tend to think my things are more important than anyone else's-I know right-just the kind of thing you want people reading about you to know. But i'm working on it-it's a process and we can only become better right...well lets hope!

enjoy the trailer-fun times!

--

Today has been ok...

Dear Diary..I mean Blogger...I mean Internet public...

I had the weirdest day today.

It started off weird-finished weird-middled weird. it was just weird.

Last night I had a strange dream that I was young and living basically in the storage closet in my room and it was cold a bleak with a couple other young girls who I really didn't recognize. Lying on top of some boxes was a green snake, which later turned into a lizard dinosaur of some sort that I ended up having to confront and wrestle. I have dreamed about this creature before making it extremely odd. But what made it even more odd was that eventually a nasty witch lady was after me and I had to hide in a garden and eventually it turned into a scene from Harry Potter. And basically I was faced with a morphed version of Lucius Malfoy and Lord Voldemort and I had to choose whether or not to use the killing curse on them. it was sort of a moral dilemma and in the end I did it perfectly and I killed it. I woke up so distraught over my ability to just off something so easily. I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. I just tossed and turned, rolled, covered and uncovered. I honestly felt like I had done it...and it was quite awful.

So I started my first day back to work on a nano-second of sleep. The coffee was too strong and my kids were in much too cheerful of a mood. I came home from lunch to find my great grandmother incredibly weak and I had to help my mother with her strained back to carry her up the stairs and to the kitchen table. She is getting progressively worse-the weakness in her legs anyway. I ate cream of wheat for lunch and thought about the amount of work I have to do. And I hate people who complain about the amounts of work they have to do because it is just really irritating-if there is so much to do and it is so bothersome and troubling then don't do it. And definitely don't complain to me about doing it. But it was more just that I haven't had a lot to do lately and have spent most of my time watching television or movies and all of a sudden I realized I have a lot to do.

So I went back to work where my boss was being a slight psycho-we hired a new employee who happens to be a very competent, educated, kid-friendly person and the entire time my employer stood by with her controlling hand trying to appear to not be controlling. That's another pet peeve-people who pretend to be chill and are really neurotic and anal retentive about things. I'm sorry but you can't be too chill if you are seriously committed to sorting all of your construction paper, making file folders for everything (and I mean everything) and insisting things are cleaned in certain ways.

Then I commenced my day by reading most of Roland Barthes "The Pleasure of the Text." And while I was reading it I was having some major deja vous. I was like I haven't read this but I have read something really similar talking about semiotics and making meaning from photographs. I couldn't remember the words but I was like these two authors would have been BFF-yeah then I realized the piece was "Camera Lucida" also authored by Barthes. It was the weirdest thing ever-thank you Jen Shaw and OSU!

So now here I lie-hopefully tired enough to sleep and yet I will probably read a little more before permanently retiring.

It was weird and deja vous-ish which, as a general rule I don't even believe in really.

and this varies from my normal blog entry-but as I believe that there is no theory/practice dichotomy -except as language simplifies it-I offer myself as an object and subject o inquiry.

blog description...

This is the description of my blog...

This is my blog about me A white, middle class (by default), queer bisexual lesbian, in graduate school, assistant director of a small preschool who lives with her mother, stepfather, adopted sister, great grandmother, and occasional niece and nephew in a quiet little mountain town. This is what comedy is made of people...

Just to clarify...

"The Lesbian Phallacy" is a play on words of the Lesbian Phallus a work by Judith Butler which builds on the psychoanalytic theories on Sigmund Freud.

As Butler suggests, “If the phallus is an imaginary effect (which is reified as the privileged signifier of the symbolic order), then its structural place is no longer determined by the logical relation of mutual exclusion entailed by a heterosexist version of sexual difference in which men are said to ‘have’ and women to ‘be’ the phallus” (Bodies That Matter 88).

Although the phallus is an imaginary signifier of power there are material benefits to possessing one and thus, it is also privileged. The Lesbian Phallus refers to a redistribution and rearticulation of modes of power often denied to those people (women, the gays, people of color) in order to subvert the dominant white, heterosexist, capitalist, patriarchy.

So anyway my blogs tend to focus on modalities of power and the ways they play out in relationships of all sorts. I tend to make observations with analysis (not judgment) in order to describe "once ocurrant acts of being" that tend to reify or subvert dominant modes of power. The Lesbian Phallacy is my blog which, deals with my own subjective place in the understandings of power-and I just thought it was clever...