Throughout the dissertation, I held the personal at bay. Or at least in a separate box. Theorizing the affective structures of depression was something I needed to keep separate from the experience of depression, somehow. I’m thinking about Ehrenberg’s observation that all the American cultural theory books on depression contain this confessional, ( Read more... )

Writing today about Kathleen Norris's theories around bipolar habits in writing. There's something about it that doesn't sit quite right, beyond what I've said in the diss. It seems to me that she (and the other writers she cites) are using bipolar as a metaphor for an alternation of zeal and lulls in the writing process that probably don't, in ( Read more... )

Check out this video that a friend of mine edited:

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When the daughter in the first story says her mom gets depressed because she doesn't have the means to give her kids more ... that's heavy.  These personal stories, combined with the fact that the University of California has once again gotten an injunction against the union to try to keep them ( Read more... )