Changes by way of explanation

[leafofgrass]

So over the past year I've found that I've changed a lot. This is inevitable as we are all constantly shedding our skins and growing them anew, but this time I feel it more than most. I nearly proposed to a woman out of love and subsequently lost that love; became disillusioned with philosophy only to discover what it really means to me; made one

Comments

hello

[hoppyoccident]

I have never "announced myself," but am a fairly regular reader...and I believe we were in the same astounding session at SPEP last Winter with Ed Casey. I am almost positive you were the one with the question about the use of the photograph. Sorry I didn't say anything, and I had only been reading you for a couple of months at that point (beginning just before the World Series and your bout with the Comps). I'm pretty reserved if not bashful.

Anyway, part of me would become quite isolated were I not to be allowed to continue to read your posts, as they have affected nothing short of my daily comportment. I, too, am a graduate student in philosophy, albeit less advanced, and am writing on Merleau-Ponty and Scheler. I am also quite fond of Galen's work, and, being at SIU-Carbondale, have grown to appreciate some Memphisians of varying note from a distance (admittedly more so from across the conference room or in the shadow of affiliated professors than from written texts).

In short, at (often tough) times I find myself to be a part of the same chiasmatic fugue as you, even if irreversibly and from across a distinct borderland.

Your page is no doubt an invaluable and exemplary stamm in my mixed up attempts to cope with and enjoy the world as a philosophy Master's student in transition to the next levels. Whatever you decide, thank you for sharing what you have.

As you clearly understand given your recent social encounter, affirmation comes neither through merely "bearing" reactive forces nor through brute, heroic "ascendancy." Your spiral out of the party reveals your having worked resolutely along the open-ended yet grounded transformative lines of experience all along. An eternal bravo for you from the Shawnee Valley just a few hours north, Cap'n...

Re: hello

[leafofgrass]

And I am nearly positive you are the gentleman who lost his notebook at the registration table! Yes, that was me at that Ed Casey session, I would love to do my dissertation with him were he not at Stoneybrook. Oh well! I find his attempt to overtly move away from time toward space fascinating, but at the end of the day it's all about zeit-raum, right? ;-)

Anyhow, I'm pretty taken aback by your words. In a good way, but nevertheless taken aback. I just assumed that those who did not comment were not reading, let alone actually appreciated my ramblings alternatingly inspired by ecstacy and angst. It's flattering to think that you care for them.

Ah Galen, a truly good human being. He's on sabbatical writing a book right now on beauty. I am very excited for its completion, I'll let you know when it gets published and with whom. I also recognize the discretion exercised on the Memphians comment: and yes, she is awesome (assuming we are speaking of the same person). Merleau-Ponty and Scheler! I hope to read some Scheler over the summer. Heidegger seems to hold him in high regard even though he is not Heidegger, so I figure that is a good start. I'm oscillating between one of three book-length projects I'm kicking around right now, but I think I've finally figured out the order in which they need to appear. In other words, it looks like my course will be Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, then add Levinas to the mix *shudder*, and finally set myself against Deleuze and Foucault (with the possible help of Badiou if I'm feeling masochistic).

Graduate school really screws with you, doesn't it? Iused to be a fairly normal human being, now I'm thinking about things like "the eternal light of the cosmos" and getting bitched out by Deleuzian feminists for being too "theoretical", whatever that means. This institutionalization is antithetical to my nature--it strikes me that we must struggle to preserve the scraps of who we are through the attempts to mold us into something else. I don't know what Carbondale is like, but some many of the students here are so self-disciplining that even pointing out collective assumptions (part of the task of philosophy, right) is liable to get your finger bit of, so to speak.

Given that most of the people folks who replied to this are not on my friends list, I don't think I'll go friends-only until I get too insecure that someone in the department is reading or something. ;-)

Don't be a stranger!

Re: hello

[madamebovary]

the one thing i learned from radio is that even if people don't call up (leave comments) it doesn't mean they're not listening (reading)!!

Sometimes, they show up when you least expect it!

Re: hello

[jimotron]

She said you were too theoretical? That's awesome. I'd have fallen over laughing.

Re: hello

[leafofgrass]

Hahaha, well, this isn't something she said that night. It
s more of a global criticism coming from the feminists and political philosophers in the program. Pretty sad, really, given that the practical/theoretical divide was supposedly overcome quite some time ago.

More directly, I think Steve T. said it best when some girl said that to him: have you done any organizing lately? Of course, I no longer have the high-ground here (I'm thinking of doing some anti-recruitment over the summer), but your point is well taken.

Fucking dumb-asses. They read a little Judith Butler and think they are revolutionaries.

Re: hello

[hoppyoccident]

Haaaaa! Yep, that was me...and thanks for holding on to the notebook. And yeah, Zeitspielraum uber alles! I am hoping to read my copies of his Remembering and Imagining sometime. And his work on "the glance" should be interesting.

Great to hear about Galen's book...do keep me (us) posted. About our fellow Egyptians: yes, she is truly awesome, but I was also referring to Kevin, who skipped town right as I proposed a thesis topic. And Len was great to have at our regional conference.

Also nice to hear that you'll be reading Scheler. Careful, though, with some of the translations (Nature of Sympathy, especially) ;). You may even find yourself setting him against your *shudder* at Levinas, hehe. Anyway, would like to hear more about the books!

Graduate school can be a thrust into hyperspace that, if we let it, could fast become a (bad) re-enactment of the Cling-on Wars or something. I agree about the "institutionalization" thing and the scrap preservation. Here in the pastures of pluralism, though, the self-discipline is predicated upon what seems an always already having dispelled collective assumptions--but what ironically in the marketplace may really be something more like evangelism by literal example. Our isolation by the surrounding undergraduate party school may have something to do with the former, a favorable condition short of its effecting a dress-rehearsal ethic when it comes time to "stand out and be relevant" (for many this is the only time it seems). The forces wielded by the latter, however, must be how who we are can seem scrapped. But, my friend, struggle as we may to preserve it, and decentered as it is, no one may abandon its immediately becoming. I suspect this is not often a curse for you and me. (As for me of late, I have had to seek such preservation in the all-too-seemingly-naturally-philosophical outerlands of the heart of a young woman from St. Louis, much against the grain of our daily grind. But alas she is transferring here and I will settle back in as we make our home, thanks to the rigor-room afforded by the spirit (if not the letter nor funding) of pluralism.

Thanks again and congrats on the panel! Good that you didn't do it during your year of hosting the conference! Nice shrinking the world with you, and sorry for the delayed response.

Best,

Bob