This morning on yet another one of my social media spaces, a friend commented that as much as Facebook is creepy, LinkedIn is even creepier in its suggestions of people users may know or want to comment on. Her comments reminded me how annoying I find that that LinkedIn is always trying to get into…
MLA 14 – Our Kind of People: Textual Community and the Latina Edited Anthology
This was a good morning. I was surprised and very pleased to find out that my paper for MLA14, “Our Kind of People: Textual Community and the Latina Edited Anthology” was accepted for inclusion in the Chicana and Chicano Literature Division ¿Anthologizing Latinidad? panel and that the roundtable special- session “Back Up Your Work: Conceptualizing Writing Support…
Hey! I’m Not a Basket Case and I Don’t Regret My Ph.D.
Disclosure: I finished my Ph.D, in English in 2011. Since then I’ve worked as a freelance editor, writing consultant and adjunct. There have been a number of articles lately in Slate and The Chronicle (and elsewhere) expressing regret for the time spent getting a Ph.D., feelings of failure, warnings to others not to go…
CSRC Virtual Boxes Proposal
This is a sketch of a proposed project I’m working on with Lizette Gurerra. Inspiration: This project draws inspiration from several sources. One classic archival assignment is to bring students of history or cultural studies into the archive, randomly assign them a box and ask them to write an essay or construct a historical narrative…
¡Ban This!: An Evening of Mass Education
About a year ago, frustration over the banning of Chicana/o writings by the state of Arizona, and the hate of all things Latino that seemed to be spreading across the country became a topic of conversation on Twitter and in essays written by some of us for Aztlán Reads. This might have been the end…
Teaching at LMU – Fall 2012
Sorry this blog has been so neglected. There’s been a lot of blogging going on over on my Chicana Feminisms course blog. I had the intention of blogging here weekly about the experience of teaching this class, but well, clearly that didn’t happen. I’ve definitely enjoyed teaching at LMU — the students have been great…
Wondering About This Bridge Called My Back
In the midst of Christmas celebration, I was forwarded an email from South End Press with the subject line Imagine Your World Without South End Press asking for donations to keep the press running. If you can, donate, they need and are worthy of our help. The plea for funds included the following paragraph Regretfully, we don’t have…
Introduction to Latino/a Studies Syllabus
[This is my attempt at creating a Latino/a studies (well, so far mostly literature) course. Do let me know what you think. If you have any ideas for films that could be included, please say! Thanks!] Course Description: While Chicano/as and Latino/as have been integral to U.S. history and culture, why have they are frequently…
Reading Today: What You See in the Dark
What You See in the Dark by Manuel Muñoz is a noir thriller set in 1950s Bakersfield. The fictional story of Mexican-American Teresa Garza’s romance with and murder by Anglo Dan Watson, is set against a re-imagining of the location scouting and filming of the shocking motel scenes in Hitchcock’s Psycho. The story itself is told…
Book Review: The Immigrant Advantage
In her new book, The Immigrant Advantage, Texas journalist Claudia Kolker writes against the too common stereotype of immigrants as disadvantaged burdens on society who need to either be assimilated or pushed out as quickly as possible. Instead she looks at individuals and communities from diverse backgrounds — Vietnamese, Korean, Mexican, West Indian, African and…