What's On My Bedside Table Today?
Pledged: The Secret LIfe of Sororities, by Alexandra Robbins (loan from a colleague. I notice our library copy has been stolen.....)*
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker (loan from friend Karen as I was whining to her about finances)
Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond (I LOVE THIS BOOK! The whole world looks different to me now)
One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps (from Rob at Burning Man. See you soon!)
Vanity Fair
Star
National Enquirer
Globe (I started reading these rags decades ago as an escape from my "work" as an English major, which was interpreting wonderful literature. I wanted time off from my studies, and I thought I would not be compelled to think as I read the tabloids as they are so unchallenging and uncomplicated. Of course I ended up analzying their content as well, even publishing an article on their representation of the JonBeney Ramsey case in Sexual Rhetoric : Media Perspectives on Sexuality, Gender, and Identity. Today I read them with ambivalence and see their disappearance on the horizon. But, honestly, not yet. Apparently I have some more evolving to do in this area.)
*as to the "missing" copy of Pledged from our library here at USC, I've got to say in truth this book does not paint a very flattering portrait of sororities and I can see why I would be defensive about it were I in one, but I am also very sorry to see people so afraid of the free exchange of ideas that they would attempt to silence an author simply because they do not like what she says. I gotta tell ya as an outsider, the book's theft makes it seem as if there's something to hide and therefore that the author might be right in her portrayal. If you're secure in who you are what you do, why care what other people say about you? Stealing a book doesn't make you right; it just makes you a thief. Not much character building in that.
Comments
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/opinion/23fish.html?ex=1154404800&en=943376e5139d4be9&ei=5070
Diana,
I felt this article was very relevant to accusations you receive from the "trolls" on your blog. I wondered how you felt about the article (ie, do you agree with the author's view of academic freedom) and I wondered what techniques you used (or have not used) in teaching your classes to avoid indoctrination of your own feminist values. Or do you think the argument is irrelevant to what academic freedom means? I started reading your blog after seeing your interview on msn, and find the controversy at least interesting, if not entirely silly.
Thanks,
Jane
Posted by: lady jane | July 24, 2006 03:11 PM
ps... Pledged looks like a really fun book to read (fun in the sense that it is disturbingly accurate). you may also enjoy Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy.
Posted by: lady jane | July 24, 2006 03:36 PM
May I suggest War Talk, a slim book of essays by Arundhati Roy, writer of one of my favorite novels God of Small Things. She'll break your heart, ignite fire in your stomach and open your eyes, all in the space of a sentence.
Posted by: Ernie D | July 24, 2006 08:26 PM
Thanks Ernie! And Jane, I wish I could say Pledged is fun. It's really kind of boring--when it isn't depressing, that is.
Posted by: Diana | July 24, 2006 09:16 PM
It still amuses me that you read the National Enquirer. But I should admit that I sometimes read this blog. I just read Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut and loved it. Earlier this summer I read Midnight's Children by Salmaan Rushdie and really hated it. But One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez was fluid and brilliant. Right now I'm reading Tom Wolfe. He's such a man's man that I find the "New Journalism," as he calls it, hard to swallow. Which is funny because I love Bukowski, who has been called a horrible sexist. I hope I didn't include too many comma splices - you're a wonderful writing professor. :) I'll see you at Burning Man baby!!!
Posted by: Merci | July 25, 2006 03:35 PM