"ungrandiose, concrete art..."

18 January 2024: “...the form permits women to offer ungrandiose, concrete art, shaped, more often than not, by the rhythm of domestic and feminine experience, which is cyclical, repetitive, and often inconclusive” (Ammons xxii).

This is one of the best and most moving description of the ninteenth-century, woman-authored, regional sketch that I have come across. And it's precisely why this genre is so rich and rewarding.  

Work Cited

Ammons, Elizabeth. Introduction. “How Celia Changed Her Mind” and Selected Stories, by Rose Terry Cooke, edited by Elizabeth Ammons, Rutgers UP, 1986, pp. ix-xl.

"Sister Josepha"

27 November 2018: "Perchance, had Sister Josepha been in the world, the eyes would have been an incident. But in this home of self-repression and retrospection, it was a life-story." --Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "Sister Josepha"

This excerpt from "Sister Josepha," one of the texts we talked about in Gender and Women's Studies today, has always stood out to me. Clearly Camille/Sister Josepha is making so much out of nothing here. She sees a pair of sympathetic eyes across the church and falls in love. It's sad and misguided, but we ought not to see it--or more importantly, her, as ridiculous.

Dunbar-Nelson's compassion towards her character--and by extension, her plea that we feel it, too--moves me, as so much Regionalist writing does. Again and again, these texts ask us to just be compassionate and understanding towards people who are different, strange, or have simply had lives we don't recognize. Though they are about very specific people in very specific places, this gesture seems so very timeless to me. 

Spring Break Link Dumping...

Five good ones:

1) 15 minutes of genius from John Stewart. Those of you who know me know I like to label myself a sort of libertarian, but these days, I really do feel label-less. I mean, who wants to call themselves a conservative or a libertarian if Glenn Beck is claiming to be one? I could go on about this, but it makes me agitated...and I don't want to be agitated on the last weekday of Spring Break. Anyway, watch the clip. At first, towards the end, I thought "well, it's getting a bit silly and over the top," but then I realized that makes it a perfect response to the craziness of the Glenn Beck universe. And the thing is, when Beck does it, it isn't just silly--it's scary.

2) An wonderful column about the virtues of the small academic conference, via insidehighered.com. I've said for a long time that PAC is one of my favorite conferences to go to, for many of the reasons Kevin Brown lists here. I wasn't able to go this year, but hope to next year.

3) For my friends who are still dissertating, insidehighered.com also offered some advice for finishing up: forget perfectionism. Seriously.

4) Maryland, a state I could swim to if I wanted to (it's just across the river from campus), isn't part of the South anymore. Good to know. (Tell me there aren't at least 10 academic articles lurking in the language of this story...on regionalism, politics, state identity, tourism, etc.)

5) Jesse James, the most hated man in America. True story. Team Sandra all the way for me. Honestly, have you ever heard a bad thing about this woman?