Negative Criticism

I recently declined to do a tenure evaluation. The candidate involved had taken issue with me in his book, and I didn't want to do an evaluation that was mostly a debate surrounding particular issues of great importance to me. It didn't help that the person didn't cite my major article in which I take this position, using instead an older one. I also passed on an opportunity to write a book review of this same book. I could have pretty much demolished the book, but that would not have been very nice.

I recognized my own bias: I tend to think that scholars who agree with me are a little bit smarter than those who don't. Compensating for the bias, I would have had to write a glowing tenure letter saying how of course this scholar was correct in trying to refute me. I just didn't have it in me, though. I decided neither to help nor harm.

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I also wrote a very scathing review of a book on Lorca in the last issue of Revista Hispánica Moderna. Here the ethical issue is improving the quality of the field by pointing out work that was not very good--in my opinion. The author of the book already has tenure, so I wasn't squashing anyone's career. I also had no bias, no stake in this particular debate.

I've done other scathing book reviews in the past. I've also been on the receiving end of a few negative reviews, and survived none the worse for wear. If I take a controversial position, I have to be expecting people to disagree with me.

The Unquiet Mind

My mind moves at a pretty intense rate; the restlessness was a problem during my vacation. I've found that jigsaw puzzles are a pretty good solution. The kind with about 1000 pieces are about right; they take several days to complete.

Cycling Through

Before my recent vacation I tried a technique of "cycling through" all 8 chapters of my book, looking at them and revising them /adding to them one by one. I could spend as much or as little time as I wanted on each chapter during any given day. I wanted to get all the project into my head at once before not thinking about it all for a while. Whether I was able to write very many words on any single chapter was secondary.

Normally, it isn't good to scatter and fragment one's attention like this.

Research Demands

I've heard some grumblings about the "research demands of tenure track jobs" and I just have to scratch my head. If research is meaningless to you, if you see it as a "demand," then maybe you should give your job to someone who knows that the reason you have a tenure track job is so you can do research. Maybe one of the other 199 people who applied for your job and is in a university less supportive of her research?

On the other hand, if you are expected to do a large amount of research and teach a heavy load, that is is a problem. If there is inadequate money to support your research travels, as is my case, that is a problem.

Unable to Draw

While I was trying to draw something the other day, or looking at some drawing materials, I thought to myself: you can't draw. You are lousy at it.

But then I thought, thinking of myself as someone unable to draw is part of my inability to draw. I don't mean that if I suddenly got a positive attitude I would automatically be able to draw, but that my clinging to my inadequacy was a way of excusing myself for not having patience to work at it. That's why students who advertise their inadequacy are so annoying. What they mean by saying they are not good at something is that they don't want to do anything that doesn't come easily to them. They are bad at languages because they don't automatically speak Spanish fluently when they first try. In other words, they are exactly like me, who did not speak Spanish fluently until I had studied and practiced for several years.

Distinctive Approach

I've always wanted to have a distinctive approach, not to do generic work that could have been done by anyone else. I never worried very much about following trends. I think that several trends have been born and died since I began work about 25 years ago, but that my work remains current--no more or less fashionable than it was when I started.

I hear a lot of complaints about having to read the umpteenth article on historical memory, post-trauma, or whatever the flavor of the month is.

Milestones

The sentence might have 25 words, the page, 300. An article is 6,000-8,000 words. The book is 80-100 thousand. If you wrote a sentence a day, you could finish a book every 11 years. That's pretty respectable, considering scholarly careers of 35 years where someone might have written 2-3 books. Writing a page a day gets you enough material for a book every year, which nobody ought to be writing.

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When I look too closely at the word count, I produce wordier writing. I'm hoping the days I write 300 words, that those are 300 better words, than the days I write 700. On the other hand I live to force out a few extra hundred words at the end of my writing session.