For Your Viewing Pleasure

I'm working, I swear. Besides, these are both relevant-ish to my research. Yep, that's the story.

1. Gaga's Bad Romance a la 1919/1920 and women's suffrage. Much fun, appropriately white. (Things I Learned This Year include the effects of Jim Crow, including on voting access for non-whites. As much as I celebrate the Nineteenth Amendment, I've had to adjust my thinking, a lot. This is important stuff; why is it not part of the dominant women's rights narrative? Not entirely a rhetorical question.)





2. Angela Davis addressing students at the University of Maryland. Why we need to stop thinking exceptionalism and start thinking systemic. She speaks largely about race, but her points are equally valid for domestic violence, gun violence, hate crimes. These are not random acts.

Soundtrack

Anniversary

If my math is correct, today is the 163'd anniversary of the First Women's Rights Convention. Approximately 300 people attended the convention, which spanned July 19 and 20, 1848 and was held in (and around) the Wesleyan Chapel, Seneca Falls, NY.

The Chapel is now part of the Women's Rights National Historical Park. The reconstruction of the Wesleyan Chapel, which has been an ongoing project for the past 3+ years, is complete, and today was its rededication. I wasn't there for today's events, but was recently while they were getting ready (that's a guy washing the Chapel windows):

Wesleyan Chapel, Women's Rights National Historical Park
Seneca Falls, New York. July 7, 2011

Finally, in honor of the day, The Distillers and their tune, "Seneca Falls":

Out of Grading Jail and Yay! Sun!

I just submitted my final grades for the semester, and am hereby liberated (temporarily) from Grading Jail (I have an approximately 3-week pass).

Happy lunar eclipse of a full moon on the winter solstice, all (yep, I'm totally setting my alarm). The ride to the darkest night of the year has been, well, dark. I am looking forward to welcoming back the sun.

Click here for some Ear Candy

A Little Bit Anthropologist

For your viewing pleasure, while I continue to wrangle grad applications...

A Thing I Didn't Know But Should Have...

I didn't know that Samuel Fraunces of Fraunces Tavern in New York City was black. At least, he was until he was made white in the 19th century before becoming black again recently.

This sort of manipulation of history is something I find interesting. But, it does annoy me to read the debates about Fraunces' color as debates about his ethnicity. The conflation of color and ethnicity makes me bonkers.

Musical Interlude

Still working on the project. I always forget/misremember/block out how long the editing and revision process takes. I will be damned if I lose another weekend to this monster...

So, while my brain occupies itself with sentence structure, tense agreement, the correct placement of figure and plate references, and the completeness of my bibliography, please enjoy The Distillers "Seneca Falls."



Excerpted from the lyrics:

Susan B. Anthony
Forever haunting me
Owned raped sold thrown
A woman was never her own
They cried freedom rise up for me
...
Elizabeth Cady
Forever reminding me
I don't steal the air I breathe
Freedom rise up for me

"I don't steal the air I breathe" should be on a bumper sticker or T-shirt...

An interesting juxtaposition with a blurb from Douglas' The Feminization of American Culture:

Virginia Woolf has written with extraordinary perception of a woman's constant and constantly frustrated need to have "a room of one's own." Perhaps she understood less well why women... often could not even formulate it as a goal. If a person feels, no matter whether consciously or otherwise, devalued, pushed aside, she or he craves first and foremost reassurance of her or his existence.... Given their cultural isolation, a demand for a room of their own could seem like further renunciation of an already slender claim on life, acceptance of solitary confinement. (p. 77)

I need more demanding that I'm not stealing the air I breathe, and less satisfaction with my existence merely being acknowledged. That's been part of the process of my blogging; out of the solitary confinement of my head, and into the world!!!


PS: In searching the WorldCat link for Douglas' book, I was rewarded with "Surv!ving the Fem!n!zat!on of America: How to Keep Women From Ru!n!ng Your L!fe." Sorry, asshat, no searchable or linky goodness promoting your book!

Kate McGarrigle 1946-2010

I was very sad to hear of the death of Kate McGarrigle. She was a Canadian folksinger, as are her sister, Anna (Kate and Anna McGarrigle put out several albums together) and her children Martha and Rufus Wainwright (she had been married to folksinger Louden Wainwright III).

I've enjoyed her singing and songwriting for years. Here's one of my favorites of the McGarrigle sisters' songs; it's from their album "Matapedia":

It's not all morbid, honest...

My writing soundtrack lately belies the occasionally morbid topic of The Book ... I've been listening to some rollicking folk music. Just TRY to keep your toes from tappity-tapping.

Music from the Contra-Dance, a series of podcasts (currently 73 of them) available free online courtesy Robert Cox. Obviously a labor of love for him, and I'm grateful!

Right, then... anyone up for contra-dancing? (I've never been, either. Perhaps we should wear our steel toes?)