File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1998/postcolonial.9804, message 349


From: Zona Sur <ZonaSur-AT-aol.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 14:00:41 EDT
Subject: RE LL and the query --what is to be done?


I include the better part of a post to LL:

What saved the discussion you and I had, Leslie, were the comments you made:

As the gatekeepers of a lot useful knowledge and ideas left intellectuals can=0Amake these resources available to oppressed people, who will and do happily=0Afigure out what to do and say on their own. Thats the best we can do, and if=0Awe really did just that it would be tremendous. 

I remember interviewing someone for a project I did on Caribbean voices--a=0Amuch pot-inflected, incredibly voiced musician from Domenica.  I gave him a=0Acopy of Kamau Brathwaite's JAH MUSIC, written in what KB calls "nation=0Alanguage" and what some others call "dialect" (let's NOT get into THAT=0Adiscussion for a moment.)  My interviewee read the King's English with some=0Ahesitation; Brathwaite without faltering.  Rather nicely,  in fact.  Later on=0Ain the interview he apologized for "not talking so good, my english isn't so=0Agood--"  words to that effect. I said, nonsense, you speak a perfectly=0Aworkable language.  Finally I asked him how much "formal" education he had=0Ahad--oh, 4th grade--I wish I had more.  It made me want to quit this rarified=0Aprogram and learn how to teach people to read, maybe, or at the least give=0Aknowledge, not hoard it.  (I'm not sure what that story means except that it=0Amade me aware of what a cloister academia is...how often so self-=0Acongratulatory in its altruistic suffering.)

AND

What are some of those strategies of leading multiple lives, with
oppositional consciousness as Ch. Sandoval has said, or with multiple
masks, as others have said?  How are people pulling this off in their
locale?  I've been interested to see some of the posts for academic
unions, for instance.  Someone last year wrote that she was teaching ESL
at nights while being a professor.  How do those of us who will probably
never get a fulltime full professor, tenured teaching job put these pieces
together?  What happens to one if one actually really wants to teach
adults, as opposed to do the turtleneck and tweed professional circuit?  I
want to know why people go into graduate school. I mean, my rationale for
getting a PhD in anthropology is about as fractured, commodified and
contradictory as they come--I imagine.

Any takers on the question:  how is academia strategic for you?

I've led at least a dual life all my life, it feels like:  the creative person=0Atrying to find a "day job" and finding ones that ultimately I left out of=0Asheer frustration--not enough time for the other life.  My reasons for a=0Adegree in Comp.Lit.--I with my lately learned Spanish--pobre Espa=F1ol, as a=0ACosta Rican friend was wont to say--my limited Bahian Portugese, my fly-by-=0Athe-seat-of-my-pants ability to comprehend many others on paper because, by=0Agolly, I am old enough to have studied Latin and able enough in my native=0Atongue to give good idiomatic 'renderings'?  (Is that like rendering fat?) I=0Ado close readings for Ngugi, and multi-media creative projects for Brathwaite=0Aand am working up the nerve to ask a filmmaking, out-of-the-academy world=0Aauthority on African religions to join my committee. The dept at NYU pulls on=0Aits long, Eurocentric chins (no offense,Bob, these are the colonials-in-exile=0Achins) and mumbles, "you should have someone more academic on your committee,=0Adon't you think?"  Then I switch to my political life--somewhat more than=0Apallid at the moment--which used to be lefty articles on arts, can you=0Aimagine?  Now, I try to hitch a ride to Costa Rica so I can go to Nicaragua=0Aand drum up some business for thoughtful--read "eco"--tourists there, after we=0A(US) have drained that poor country dry.  My ostensible purpose is an=0Ainterview or two for a small spot on natural science on radio.  Oh, somewhere=0Ain the midst, I work on the--hopefully--last draft of my novel, create a=0AWEBsite for the family ecoTours biz, pitch another article to a magazine, have=0Aa semblance of a personal life--go to weddings and funerals--

What is there left to take?

Oh, and you know something, I LOVE to teach.  I have been a charismatic=0Ateacher of creative writing, and high school English--and I miss the rush of=0Asetting a kid on his or her ear, running frantically out of the room for, of=0Aall places, the LIBRARY, because they HAVE TO know.

Academic strategy?  With all those lives, Leslie, I think I need to apply for=0Aanother body, or to renew my contract for what passes for the Almighty these=0Adays. so I can finish everything I've started.
 
Best,

ZS




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