Category Archives: Archives

January 2, 2013, 11:27 am

Oh, When The Historians Go Marching In: AHA 2013, New Orleans

The rumbling sound off in the distance is the purr of roller bags heading to airports across the land. And do you hear the tap-tap-tap-tap of fingers in 12/8 swing time, as historians make dinner, drinks, interviewing and publishing dates through the weekend?

That’s right, the 127th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association starts tomorrow, in New Orleans. If you are interested in seeing Tenured Radical in action, you will want to come to The Public Practice of History in and for a Digital Age, Thursday night at 8:00. Chances are if you drop in on other panels devoted to things electronic, you will run into me there too.

Do come up and say hello.

Critics of the academic conference industry will still be distressed at the fiscal irresponsibility of scholars (particularly those devoted to things digital)meeting face to face. Why spend university funds ~~that~~ ~~could…~~

December 27, 2012, 5:23 pm

Kid Knowledge: An Interview With J. Jack Halberstam (Part II)

By Claire Potter

SpongeBob SquarePants, a veritable font of gaga kid knowledge, debuted on the Nickelodeon channel in 1999.

Halberstam and I planned part II of this interview about Gaga Feminism: Sex Gender and the End of Normal (Beacon 2012) around the topic of taking the observations of children seriously. History then intervened. In Sandy Hook, CT, 20 children and 7 adults were shot to death by a young man barely beyond adolescence himself; suddenly, this post became difficult and poignant. However, as Jack pointed out in an email, “perhaps it is even more appropriate” to talk about what children know, and what they care about, at this time.

I agree. We at Tenured Radical honor all of the deceased in Sandy Hook by reminding ourselves of why adult teachers, six of whom deliberately sacrificed their own lives for their…

December 12, 2012, 9:56 pm

A Whale of an Idea: Moby Dicke Booke Clubbe

By Claire Potter

Comrade Physioproffe is starting a Moby Dicke Booke Clubbe. Celebrate the holidays by checking in here to discuss greatte literature with Physioproffe, Historiann, Fratguy, brianogilvie, Matt_L and all your favorite academic blogge stars.

December 7, 2012, 9:51 am

Stanford’s Five Year Ph.D. (continued): In Which The Blogger Responds To Comments On A Prior Post

By Claire Potter

Maybe I could turn this post in as a dissertation and get another Ph.D. by Sunday? Photo credit.

Yesterday I posted about Stanford’s new plan to shorten up the humanities Ph.D. to five years. Then I went to the movies, specifically, a documentary about why the children of the poor attend four year colleges in far lower numbers than the children of middle-class or wealthy people. During the course of the evening, the post metastasized all over the interwebz, attracting a number of comments. My original Twitter posting notched more re-tweets than any item at Tenured Radical has probably ever had.

Awesome. Keep talking, and while you do, here is a response to some of what I have heard.

Just to be clear: I do not defend an endlessly long Ph.D. But that said, many defenses of a forced time to degree metric…

December 5, 2012, 11:26 am

Gaga Feminism: An Interview With J. Jack Halberstam (Part I)

By Claire Potter

J. Jack Halberstam is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and one of queer studies’ most prominent and accessible public intellectuals. Jack has challenged the fields of literature, cultural studies, film and television with path-breaking volumes like Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (2005), Female Masculinity (1998), The Drag King Book: A First Look (1999, in partnership with photographer Del LaGrace Volcano), and In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (2005). More recently, in The QueerArt of Failure (2011) and Gaga Feminism: Sex Gender and the End of Normal (2012), Halberstam has taken queer theory’s classic intervention, revealing what is hidden in plain sight, to interrogate everyday knowledge that is often neglected by cultural critics — cartoons, pop videos, and the questions …

November 16, 2012, 12:30 am

From The Mail Box: Reader Questions Whole Concept Of Academic Conferences

By Claire Potter

#2012ASA agreed to wait until after the election to deconstruct empire. Subsidize with tax dollars hasta pronto. Hillz

It’s very rare that I get a response to a post on academic conferences like this one. In the comment thread to yesterday’s post, archie_kelvin asks:

A long, long time ago, on the dear departed “Brainstorm” site, there was a long, long thread (in response to a post somewhat like TR’s) about attending an academic conference in a sunny clime, far away from the campuses of most attendees.

archie followed up with a bunch of questions, which I will attempt to answer (and yes, archie, my panel went very well today — thanks for asking.)

Aren’t these things just boondoggles, mini-vacations wholly or partly on somebody else’s tab?

All conferences, in all professions, are at least partly…

November 14, 2012, 11:25 pm

At Thanksgiving, We Thank The Lord For American Studies

By Claire Potter

Binders full of academics are being disgorged at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico for the American Studies Association Annual Meeting. Good news: unlike many places in the Northeast, there is heat and hot water, and it’s about 80 degrees. Your favorite Radical, who spent this pre-convention day eating fish sandwiches at the beach, has an unexpectedly fantastic room at the Caribe Hilton, the conference headquarters. A Mad Man-ny styled place with 1960s retro furniture and a shower as big as some Manhattan apartments, it has a balcony and a view of the entire coastline.

Those of us who are checked in here had a fantasy about being able to slip in and out of panels, and in between go back to the beach. I was not the only person to design my convention-wear so that a bathing suit would fit comfortably underneath. Alas, it is not to be: the actual meeting…

October 13, 2012, 2:12 pm

What’s The Problem With Uncle Poodle? A Queer Southern Historian And Her Critics

By Claire Potter

A regular guy? Photo credit.

When is a poodle not a poodle? When that poodle is gay Uncle Poodle.

On the season finale of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, a reality television show about the life and times of a seven year-old beauty pageant contestant in Georgia, some portion of the civilized world was introduced to Lee Thompson, Honey Boo Boo’s “Uncle Poodle.” The rest of us learned about him in a New York Times op-ed piece by UNC – Charlotte cultural historian Karen Cox, most recently the author of Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2011). Perhaps in anticipation of National Coming Out Day, Cox used Uncle Poodle’s entrance onto the national stage as an opportunity to suggest that there is more than one way to be out and proud in America….

October 6, 2012, 1:02 pm

Can We Talk? 51% of the Voters Are Women (Live Blogged From the New Yorker Festival)

By Claire Potter

Sorry I haz 2 miss this TR u know wut 2 do

Having complained relentlessly about the lack of discussion about women in the first presidential debate Tenured Radial was invited to attend a New Yorker Festival event, “The Fifty-One Percent: Winning the Female Vote,” and will live blog it starting at 1:00 PM. Members of the panel are Kellyanne Conway, Margaret Hoover, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Cecile Richards. The panel will be moderated by Dorothy Wickenden. Biographies of all participants are available by clicking the above link. A full schedule of events for the festival, which continues through tomorrow, is available here.

Here we are at the School of Visual Arts theater on 23rd street in Manhattan: yours truly has a seat up front with a birds eye view. The lights just went down. (FYI: Jill Lepore is doing a…

September 28, 2012, 2:48 pm

A Cheating Heart: There Are Reasons, But No Excuses

By Claire Potter

Did Bernie Madoff’ cheat on tests in high school?

I am in Ithaca for a conference honoring a distinguished scholar. This conference began — as many do — over an evening of drinks and informal chat as we awaited the proceedings that would commence today. After the usual introductions (this includes assurances that one has met before — which is likely among historians, even if neither of us is sure where we met) folks got down to the business of launching conversations and extracting wine from cunning banks of mechanical dispensers.

One topic was the prevalence of cheating among college students. Specifically we discussed this article in the New York Times (9/26/2012) in which students at Stuyvesant, a prestigious New York public high school, opened up to a reporter about how they cheat and why…