“When I got back to Poughkeepsie, the town otherwise known as Paris of the East,…”. This made me flash back to an on-campus interview for a tenure-track job in the French Department at Vassar, after the MLA interview, in February 1988. Tons of snow. I was not liking Poughkeepsie (and accepted another offer). Two women senior faculty members who seemed elderly to me at the time invited me to tea at one of their homes. We were all American. They spoke to me exclusively in French, though we’d all already determined we spoke French fluently, so it wasn’t a job qualification thing. I found it very strange. In 1978, I took Roland Barthes’ course on Yves Bonnefoy at the Collège de France in Paris. Two elderly women came to every class, always sitting together in the first row. They were not the same women but the Vassar professors made me think of them. I still have my Clairefontaine notebook filled with my notes written with a fountain pen. It was such a shock when Barthes died.
So many delightful tangents in this post! First, I went to my Podcasts to follow "The Critic and her Publics" Next, I went to Libby (I am currently traveling in Newfoundland in an RV) to see if I could download the Roland Barthes (which I know my mother has on her shelf at home- possibly a first English edition? It would be that old) but instead found "A Lover's Discourse" by Xiaolu Guo. Have you read any of her books? I have not. But it was available, so I downloaded it. Looks like a fictional exploration in the manner of the Barthes. We are wild camping at Anderson's Cove tonite (about a mile from Dildo, NL). The sun is going down over the water. I do think that A Public Space's #APStogether is a project which makes literature public facing, IMHO.
Hi there, Sadie. Thanks for reading and I agree completely with your reading of #APSTogether—it helps in the construction of a literary public sphere. I haven’t read that particular book of Xiaolu Guo’s.
Great story about your friend. Makes me wonder if any of the men read it. As for me, I returned to Lover's Discourse a few years ago when I was planning a course on interior and meditative language (or secret language for Barthes). I largely agree with Emre's and your point about the need for more public-facing academic writing. I always get tripped however when I think of certain writers who cannot write otherwise. Judith Butler recently made a public-facing attempt with Who's Afraid of Gender? but it is charmingly inept at reducing their thinking to public language. I'm reminded of complaints about Proust or Paul West and their long sentences with many clauses, and their figural language. The friends of these writers had to vouch for them, "No! You don't get it. This is the way he speaks!" I know of some academics who are like that.
Once again, thanks for reading. Emre has an episode on her show where she talks with the editor who worked on that book by Butler. If memory serves, it was Jackson Howard.
“When I got back to Poughkeepsie, the town otherwise known as Paris of the East,…”. This made me flash back to an on-campus interview for a tenure-track job in the French Department at Vassar, after the MLA interview, in February 1988. Tons of snow. I was not liking Poughkeepsie (and accepted another offer). Two women senior faculty members who seemed elderly to me at the time invited me to tea at one of their homes. We were all American. They spoke to me exclusively in French, though we’d all already determined we spoke French fluently, so it wasn’t a job qualification thing. I found it very strange. In 1978, I took Roland Barthes’ course on Yves Bonnefoy at the Collège de France in Paris. Two elderly women came to every class, always sitting together in the first row. They were not the same women but the Vassar professors made me think of them. I still have my Clairefontaine notebook filled with my notes written with a fountain pen. It was such a shock when Barthes died.
So many delightful tangents in this post! First, I went to my Podcasts to follow "The Critic and her Publics" Next, I went to Libby (I am currently traveling in Newfoundland in an RV) to see if I could download the Roland Barthes (which I know my mother has on her shelf at home- possibly a first English edition? It would be that old) but instead found "A Lover's Discourse" by Xiaolu Guo. Have you read any of her books? I have not. But it was available, so I downloaded it. Looks like a fictional exploration in the manner of the Barthes. We are wild camping at Anderson's Cove tonite (about a mile from Dildo, NL). The sun is going down over the water. I do think that A Public Space's #APStogether is a project which makes literature public facing, IMHO.
Hi there, Sadie. Thanks for reading and I agree completely with your reading of #APSTogether—it helps in the construction of a literary public sphere. I haven’t read that particular book of Xiaolu Guo’s.
Great story about your friend. Makes me wonder if any of the men read it. As for me, I returned to Lover's Discourse a few years ago when I was planning a course on interior and meditative language (or secret language for Barthes). I largely agree with Emre's and your point about the need for more public-facing academic writing. I always get tripped however when I think of certain writers who cannot write otherwise. Judith Butler recently made a public-facing attempt with Who's Afraid of Gender? but it is charmingly inept at reducing their thinking to public language. I'm reminded of complaints about Proust or Paul West and their long sentences with many clauses, and their figural language. The friends of these writers had to vouch for them, "No! You don't get it. This is the way he speaks!" I know of some academics who are like that.
Once again, thanks for reading. Emre has an episode on her show where she talks with the editor who worked on that book by Butler. If memory serves, it was Jackson Howard.