CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: PAUL AMAR (Law & Society Program, Global Studies, Feminist Studies, UC-Santa Barbara), ADAM GREEN (Sociology, U. of Toronto), JOON LEE (English, Rhode Island School of Design), HEATHER LOVE (English, U. of Pennsylvania).

WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF: DAVID HALPERIN, HOLLY HUGHES, ESTHER NEWTON, GAYLE RUBIN, VALERIE TRAUB.

What is queer about queer studies? Does queer refer to a set of topics or a mode of inquiry? What is the role of theory in queer studies? How is new scholarship bridging the social sciences and the humanities? What is the relationship between actual queer practices and queer studies? What is the relationship between scholarship and activism? How are radical sex critique and queer studies related? What are the limitations of queer?

These are some of the questions we are interested in twenty years after the emergence of queer theory. The purpose of this conference is to take stock of and provide a showcase for innovative practices and pursuits in queer studies, both in the humanities and social sciences, as well as emerging fields that bridge the two.

We are not calling for papers that engage these questions at a meta-level, but rather for work that is conditioned by them.

While we welcome a range of topics, some of the topics we are interested in include:

- the role of historical, political and economic forces in shaping queerness
- governmentality, state and biopolitics
- transnational flows of capital and migrations
- queer intersections with race, gender, class, ability, age, etc.
- queer subjectivities, experiences and identities
- queer historiography, phenomenology and temporality
- visual culture, new media

Paper abstracts of 250 to 300 words should be sent by June 1, 2010 to doingqueerstudiesnow2010 (at) umich (dot) edu. We wish to notify presenters by Monday, June 21. We will ask for the completed paper for respondents by October 1, 2010.

When you live in Michigan, you start to forget what the sun feels like on your face. So for Spring Break each year, Maxime and I travel down to Mexico to meet our friends Nolberto (who blogs here!) and his partner Chema for a week of mischief and splendor. Aaron joined this year, and after a 14 hour journey (2 flights and one bus ride) we made it to Acapulco for some fabulousness.

Anyholler, obviously blogging will be a bit slow this week. But I'll be popping in to share a photo from time to time :)

Oh, Trevi! Your post on how annoying it is to have to decipher the sense of the word "problematic" when it is actually used as one of these hypocritical detours to express a disagreement in a gentle, almost clandestine way, reminded me of a cultural gap between French and American people in terms of holding a conversation and expressing oneself publicly.

Of course these are only my subjective thoughts, based on just four years spent in the golden cage of Ann Arbor, Michigan, so who I am to speak in the name of French people and to make some highly disputable generalizations about American folks? Well, this previous statement is actually symptomatic of what I want to share with you: the need to put some rhetorical lube before expressing a personal opinion so that, in case of a debate, or a disagreement, I already anticipate a space for modifying my opinion and reaching an agreement - and saving my ass.

I noticed this tendency, in America, to be careful when you are about to speak up your mind. You are encouraged to be sincere, of course, but people tend to formulate their opinions with a rhetoric that reflects flexibility and humble skepticism. In my experience, the American conversation relies on the use of conditional -- like "I would say" or "I would think" -- or the seemingly ever-recurring "maybes" and euphemistic expressions (the word "problematic" is one of these euphemisms). That's what I call "rhetorical lube." You don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by expressing yourself. Rather, you want to make sure you're still being seen as a sociable, smiling, constructive person. A "team player."

Thinking about this rhetoric, and contrasting it with the way French people tend to express themselves, I was struck by a cultural gap. In France, we tend to be much more explicit than American people, straight to the point, without fear of inciting an intense conversation or an argument. When you look for a job in France, you do not have to prove how sociable and friendly you can be, how compatible you are with many different kinds of people, and how careful you are to respect everyone's sensibility. In other words, you are expected to be polite, but you are also expected to have a personality and not to fear conflict when defending your beliefs. In America, people tend to be careful to avoid personal conflicts. They do their best to avoid being labeled "defensive" because others might perceive them as deviating from the politically correct, mainstream, and utterly safe opinions that circulate in everyday life.

That's when it becomes more than just an issue of rhetoric. Let me articulate here a political interpretation on why would French people be less concerned about conflicts, about being loud on their beliefs, whereas Americans would tend to value courteous dialogue and constructive behavior. I propose that, more than just a matter of different rhetorical styles, these differences have political roots. In France, even if you're a poor worker, you can still rely on the nanny state in terms of having access to a free, high quality health system. And if you think you were fired for unfair reasons, you can rely on the free Prud'hommes system in order to sue your boss and reclaim a compensation for any abuse of power. The same for education: you don't have to plan a huge budget for your kids because in France most of the schools, including the most prestigious and elitist ones, are not expensive and do not select their students by the financial profile of their parents.

Of course I am not convinced myself by what I wrote (Bourdieu would spit on my face), France is far from being a paradise, deficits are huge and nobody seems to be willing to quote us as a model. On top of that I came to the University of Michigan to start a PhD precisely because the conditions for studying and the resources here are just outstanding, so let me rephrase my opinion in a less stereotypical way: in spite of all the drawbacks of the French nanny state, of all the big lies on the French egalitarian system in terms of education and public health insurance, it still remains obvious than French people, in comparison to American people, are not afraid of being often on strike, of suing their bosses, and of having a big argument in public when they feel they are right!

I want to interpret this as the political consequence of knowing that, in case of cancer, or of unemployment, you know you can rely on the nanny state for support. On the contrary, I think that if Americans are so concerned about being seen as sociable and not defensive, it is because in their contemporary society, they can only rely on themselves and think twice before taking a risk. You live constantly on loans. We don't. You have to deal with an army of lawyers to protect yourself or attack the others, we don't. That is a big, huge, significant difference. You have much more to lose when you rely on yourself, so you think twice before speaking up your mind. And the Fox News constant brainwashing on "don't forget to live with fear" does not help at all. It only confirms the dynamics of a safe, selfish individualism!

But let me end on this note, and this is my outing as a socialist here: self made men do exist, and yes they are wonderful role models. But they belong to the happy few, and their success story should never be a pretext to legitimize the absence of a basic, financial support from the Nation in the name of social justice and, as we say in France, fraternité. So God Bless America, and those who want to change it radically!

If you've ever spent more than twelve minutes with lefty activists or critical academics, you will notice that one word somehow manages to pop up as a way to describe a variety of things, people, phenomena, and social issues: "Problematic." Everything from homophobia to movie posters to legislation gets described in this way, to the detriment I think of the speaker, because this word is so grossly imprecise. I often get confused about the meaning of this word, and people often misread my use of it, creating a general state of confusion and misinterpretation that doesn't work towards anyone benefit.So today, I wanted to pause for a second today to reflect on this overused and imprecise word that so many of us find so appealing. What do I mean by it? What do I read others as meaning by it? And how might we find other ways of saying what we mean when we use it so that people understand us a bit better? I'll use the image above -- which came up as an early Google Images result when searching for "problematic" -- as a reference point to describe how these different meanings would result in different responses to the image.

In my experience, there are two broad uses of this word that relate to the differences I see in who's using them: Academics and activists. Let's begin with that activist-y definition, which I take to be the more common usage of the word (at least in my experience). For activists, I understand their intention when labeling something as problematic as a way to say that these things are generally bad and should be avoided -- and more specifically, evidence of oppressive systems such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. Thus, there is a moral valence here: Problematic things are morally bad, unjust, and something that should illicit shame in its maker, something that is perceived as grossly incompatible with "social justice" (another highly vague term, as is indicated by my critique yesterday. But I digress).

Thus, in this frame, if I refer to the image above as "problematic," I probably mean to say that it's blatantly racist for the way it represents Asian men in the role of women, feminizing them categorically while buttressing white male masculinity by way of making the white man look strong, tall, and manly in comparison with the small "geisha boy" dressed in traditional women's garbs. In more plain language, I'd also probably say that Jerry Lewis is a racist asshole and that he should be ashamed of being involved with its production. Thus, problematic often becomes a nicer way to call a person a jerk and to spank them verbally.

But there is another understanding of the word, which I take to be closer to the word's original meaning (though I make no claim that "original" meanings are the "right" meanings). I say this as a result of the definitions available online. From Merriam-Webster:

1 a : posing a problem : difficult to solve or decide b : not definite or settled : uncertain c : open to question or debate : questionable 2 : expressing or supporting a possibility

Thus, in this frame, to call something problematic is a bit like labeling it a thought-puzzle, as begging or requiring inquiry and explanation. This is much closer to the definition I think most academics are referring to when they invoke "problematic." I refer here to Chrys Ingraham's rather elegant explanation from her essay "The Heterosexual Imaginary," where she attempts to explain her goal as a feminist scholar trying to unpack the ways in which heteronormativity functions and is reproduced. Relying on Althusser's conception of "problematic," she argues:

"To examine the ways in which feminist sociology reproduces the heterosexual imaginary requires a theoretical framework capable of investigating the interests and assumptions embedded within any social text or practice. This mode of inquiry would make visible the frames of intelligibility or the 'permitted' meanings in constructions of gender and heterosexuality. More than this, it would connect heterosexuality and interests to a problematic. As Althusser has argued, 'A word or concept cannot be considered in isolation; it only exists in the theoretical or ideological framework in which it is used: its problematic' (1982:253). To determine a text's problematic is to reveal another logic circulating beneath the surface. It appears as the answer to questions left unasked. It is not that which is left unsaid or unaccounted for, but that which the text assumes and does not speak. What is required, then, is a process of analysis capable of inquiring into the power relations organizing the allowed as well as the disallowed meanings in an effort to expose the artificiality of the theories and ideologies organizing the use of particular concepts." (p. 6, link)

In this conception of "problematic," the word here is meant to describe the "theoretical or ideological framework" in which a word or a "text" (an academic term that really refers to any kind of written word but also images and media that can be subjected to a critical interpretation) exists. She uses it here notably as a noun -- not an adjective. This "context" could be include a variety of approaches that relate to academic disciplinary practices and methods for analysis, such as a historical approach -- how did the historical moment in which the text was produced impact the symbols and meanings embedded within it -- or perhaps from a sociological perspective reading transcripts of interviews to understand how it is imbued with cultural narratives that give us some insight into the socio-cultural context in which they live.

Thus, relying on this conception of "problematic," morality is not called into question. Indeed, many scholars would argue against a universal conception of morality that could be imposed from the outside on a particular text, phenomenon, or practice. Thus, within this framework, calling this image above "problematic" would instead imply that there are various forms of representation simultaneously being invoked that require a bit of critical analysis. Thus, one might attempt to compare this image to historical representations of Japanese men (and East Asian men more broadly) that enabled this particular image to be legible or understandable to its audience. In order for this text to be meaningful as a marketing tool, its producers has to expect that -- to at least some degree -- people seeing it would be able understand how to interpret the boy's clothes, the term "geisha," and the larger social and historical relations between the Japanese and Americans.

Thus, to describe it as "problematic" in this sense would not necessarily entail it's condemnation -- or to imply that you think Jerry Lewis is a jerk (although they may well think so). In and of itself, the text cannot be morally "bad." Rather, it is the ways in which it relies on and is produced through various systems of power and social relations that are deserving of critical attention. Connecting this image to this socio-cultural and historical context helps reveal why we would want to describe it as "racist" today - even though it may not have been readily understood as such at the time. In this way, understanding something as "problematic" is to demand attention to this context -- that dwelling simply on the image as if it were in a vacuum is not productive analytically.

I don't think either are particularly "better," per se. The first version is motivated by various political agendas -- to use problematic in this sense is to call out practices or ideas that do indeed reinforce pervasive systems of injustice like racism, sexism and homophobia. I don't mean to imply that this isn't a worthwhile goal. But by posing it alongside an entirely different conception used often by academics, I want to just note how there are this disparate meanings in use that make understanding those who invoke it difficult. So I think we need to try to find a new word - or just explain what we mean when we use it. I'm constantly confused when people describe something as "problematic" - it seems to be a kind of catch-all colloquialism that people are expected to generally understand but not perfectly. So next time you want to call Jerry Lewis an asshole, just do it! No need to beat around the bush.

Anyhow, that's my totally academic and asinine indulgence for the week. If anyone is still reading, I'd love to hear thoughts!

xoxo

T

I was nostalgically flipping through my Master's thesis this morning, when I stumbled upon this quote from "Tom" - a 20 year old San Franciscan who I interviewed about being gay and staying HIV-negative. He was struggling to develop his own gay community, and I will never forget the passion and intensity with which he said this to me in our interview (note: "Jake" is one of the other participants, who in our focus group together came out against monogamy):

I'm really sort of a romantic idealist, you know? I always have this image of gay guys being very hard and very like cold, you know, one-night-standish - shunning love. When Jake said... 'monogamy doesn't work' - like, for me, and seriously, my heart just broke into a million pieces for like the millionth time. I was sad. I was like, GOD! That's a terrible thing to say. It can totally work! I totally want to get married - I'm so into getting married. I want to go to IKEA, I want to pickup my fucking furniture, I want to have parties, I want to have a good group of gay husbands, you know have dinner parties, and have fun, and yeah. It's in my future, I hope it is. It's what I want. So when he said that, it just made me totally sad. I totally got totally sad. I don't want that suspicion confirmed.

You know, I think some of my colleagues would quick to pounce and critique Tom's vision of his gay future. His "gay American dream," as I called it in my thesis. But he really, truly wants this. And who are we to critique him for that? Critique the (hetero)normative system in which he lives, sure. But I just can't critique Tom.

Happy 2010, ladies! I've been a terribly negligent blogger as of the past month. First it was final exams, and then it was family and friends over the holidays. Alas, my month of intense pain and then leisure has now come to a halt and I'm back to the grind. Classes begin again today at Michigan. Too early if you ask me!

New Year's was spent with the San Francisco gay family -- temporarily located in Boston to be with our friend whose just moved there from SF -- and it was a lovely time. As if this photo doesn't say it all:

That was New Year's Day after having dinner in Boston's North End Italian District. We ate at Pomodoro, which changed our lives. Seriously: One of the best meals of my gay life. The woman who owns it runs it with her daughter who waits tables while she keeps everything moving. It's the size of a New York hotel room in there, but the food is delicious and she kept plying us with complimentary appetizers and desserts to "start the new year right." She's wonderful, and so is her eatery.

We stayed at our dear friend Ty's place -- who has just moved out East to the frozen Puritanical tundra that is Boston. He lives out in Jamaica Plain, which meant taking the orange line to and fro his place. Here we are bundled up within an inch of our lives waiting for the train to come in the decidedly unheated station:

Jesus we're adorable. I can hardly stand it myself, so I'll call this entry to an end. I'll get back to a regular routine of sharing gayness here this week. Sorry for the hiatus! Hope you had a lovely holiday season as well!

xoxoxoxo

T

I'm bringing Maxime, Rostom, and his husband Matthieu down to North Carolina for a good ol' Southern Thanksgiving tomorrow morning. We're making the long drive down for some finger-lickin', cranberry-sauced, stuffing-crammed, perfectly cooked turkey. Delicious! I even made an apple pie for the occasion!

Anyholler, we'll be filming an episode or two of "The View From the Bottom": Got any question for us on this Thanksigiving? :)

Hope you have a swell Thanksgiving wherever you are!

xoxo

T

I'm a bit ashamed to say it, but I absolutely hate Halloween. It has never been something that excited me, which may be the result of how downright terrible I am at putting together a costume. And there is nothing in the world that is more annoying than people repeatedly telling you how lame you are for not dressing up. Gross!

So instead of subjecting myself to such things, this year I had a quiet dinner with my dear friend Rostom, who made the most exquisite dessert I've tasted in years: Isle Flottante (Floating Islands). It's ridiculously simple, and basically involves a cooked meringue floating atop a pool of crème anglaise -- a mixture of sugar, egg yolks, milk, and vanilla. (The Barefoot Contessa has a recipe here that looks promising, but is different from Rostom's). Here's a (not so great iPhone) photo of the finished product:

And that was just the beginning. Sunday night, Maxime and I hatched our long-standing plan to cook Lapin a la Moutarde (Rabbit with Mustard Sauce). I've never tasted rabbit, nor have I ever cooked it, so this was a challenge. The recipe we followed was quite extensive, calling for the preparation of our own rabbit-vegetable-herb stock that would be used as a bubbling bathe of deliciousness for cooking the rabbit meat. We picked up some delicious Maille French Mustard (half "grainy" old-style Dijon, half finely ground traditional Dijon) that the meat marinated in for a few hours. The biggest challenge for me was to actually cut up the rabbit we got from the butcher downtown. That's right, they come whole and you have to butcher them yourself. I've never done this, but after having gone through this learning process, I think I can safely say it helps you to appreciate what you're eating. Here's a shot of me slicing up the second rabbit, with the first pieces already done (thumbnail so as to not scare you too much, click to embiggen):

It's actually not so difficult, once you get the hang of it. Kitchen shears help A LOT. I found these step-by-step directions very helpful. Here's Maxime, wearing his most appropriate shirt, covering the rabbit meat in mustard for marination and cooking:

I HIGHLY recommend trying this recipe out, if you've got some time on your hands. The stock takes quite a while to make (4-5 hours when done right -- we condensed the time down to 2.5 hours) and you should let the rabbit marinate for a few hours in the mustard. I have to say, though, it was a lot of fun and the rabbit was AMAZING and so effing delicious. If you can get your hands on some, do so!

And she's not fucking around:

Those of us who were trying to develop a balanced critique of both the paralysis of the state economy and the questionable governance by UC administrators were incredulous when Yudof gave an interview to the New York Times Magazine in which he bragged about his own $800,000 salary, shamelessly displayed his anti-intellectualism, described his entry into the field of education as "an accident" and complained that he tries to speak to faculty and staff about the budget, but it is "speaking to the dead".

Suddenly, the problem was not only fiscal - "we don't have the money" - but a more profound loss of confidence in the mode of governance and the figure of authority entrusted with making the case for public education to the state and federal government during these hard times.

Faculty, staff and students are collectively outraged that the university has failed to make public and transparent what the cuts have been and will be, and by what criteria and set of priorities such cuts are made. Rage also centres on the devastation of "shared governance" - the policy that faculty must be part of any decision-making that affects the academic programmes and direction of the university. In its place, a "commission" was appointed by the administration with paltry representation by faculty. Emphatically missing are those in the arts and humanities.

Nice! Read the rest here.

After an outrageous delay, we're back! Maxime, Rostom, and I teamed up for this threeway edition of the show about gay men's health told from the perspective of three bottomless bottoms. We had to film the episode TWICE because of some foul play with the audio, and you'll notice the formatting is a bit funky via Youtube. Both of these things will be rectified in future editions. I think what we came up with still turned out pretty darn good! Enjoy!

I got a chuckle out of seeing my professor's hand repeatedly copied into the readings for today's class. I couldn't help but share!

Aww isn't it so cute! You can really see the resemblance! This blog has been my lovechild for four years now, and I'm so proud to see it continue to flourish today with the addition this year of new voices and a brand spanking new design. I even was lucky enough to be attacked by Christina Aguilera fans who brought my site down for almost two weeks. I was so flattered. Thank you for thinking this blog matters enough to hack!

As has been my custom on this auspicious occasion, I'd like to highlight my favorite entries from over the years. Check them out and take a whirlwind tour of my life and thoughts!

Thanks for reading and supporting this project. It just keeps getting better and more wonderful to have more people logging on and showing an interest in hearing my thoughts. It's the ultimate flattery. For realz.

xoxo

T

From 2005:

Rehnquist Hospitalized, Bush to Take Over World (July 14)

I am a Political Scientist. What the hell does that mean? (July 28)

My FIRST Day as a Graduate Student (August 26)

Online Racial Power Disparities (August 28)

Why I Left the NC Fellows Program (September 8)

The Surreal Life, San Fran Style (October 16)

Creating Change Conference '05 (November 14)

From 2006:

Misogyny and Gay Men (January 22)

"Against Health" Conference (October 13)

Frustrated with San Francisco (October 29)

The Death of Fiscally Conservative Repubs, and the Rise of Libertarian Dems (October 30)

Feminist/Queer/Man: Dialoguing on Gender

From 2007:

LGBTI Health Summit - Philadelphia (March 17)

Beyond Identity Politics? (May 19)

Toronto = Fabulous (October 7)

Longtime Companion, Early AIDS Movies, and Mentorship (October 25)

What I'm Thankful For, 2007 (November 20)

Questions of Trans-Inclusion and Identity (December 3)

A Lovely Time in Mexico! (December 17)

From 2008:

Creating Change '08: Mourning / Celebration (February 10)

Making it Work: Mobilizing Gay and Lesbian Identities in the 21st Century (February 12)

Where's the Pleasure in Gay Sex? (February 16)

On the Staph Debate and the Swiss AIDS Study (February 17)

Barebacking and XTube: A Window Into Our Sex Lives (February 22)

Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy: Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 (March 22-24)

Gay.com Conversations on Race: Part One / Part Two (April 1-2)

HIV Prevention Politics in Detroit (April 17)

The Gayest Podcast in Michigan - Episode 2a: Troy Wood (June 23)

Juanita More's 2008 PRIDE Party Extravaganza (June 30)

The Gayest Podcast in Michigan - Episode 2b: Troy Wood, Ctd. (July 4)

"DON'T ASK ME TO PAY FOR THEIR MEDICINE!" (July 23)

Gaycation '08 Photo Album (July 28)

Hooking Up (July 31)

Racial Diversity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: San Francisco Edition (August 6)

Racial Diversity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: Atlanta Edition (August 8)

Racial Diversity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: NYC Edition (August 10)

The LAST Trannyshack EVER (August 13)

Me on "Getting it on with Bonnie" (August 21)

Dating Economics (September 13)

Three Fags in a Boat (October 12)

What is Sexual Health? (October 19)

Outrage! NC DJ Arrested for Having Unprotected Sex (October 23)

Resist "Lazy Structuralism": HIV Prevention as Case Study (October 27)

"BlacksOnBoys": The Construction of Black Masculinity (Vs. White Femininity) in Gay Porn (November 30)

Working Out, or, "What happens to twinks when they hit 25?" (December 8)

Positional Identity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: SF Edition (December 18)

From 2009:

Positional Identity on Manhunt, Adam4Adam: NYC Edition (February 3)

Me and Loretta Devine!!!! (February 10)

Eric Leven's Recent Barebacking Video: "Why are we..." (March 3)

How Do I Trust Again?: Love, Betrayal, and Moving On (March 17)

Why are Hate Crimes Worse Than Other Crimes? (April 1)

What's New in Gay Sex?: "Natural" (April 11)

Recuperating "Heteronormativity": It's Not *Just* About Heterosexuals! (April 20)

Christina Aguilera Fans Crashed My Blog (May 10)

To Everyone Who Is Demanding Lambert Come Out... (May 28)

Hookups are not meaningless (And other thoughts on sex) (May 29)

Tonight for my "Sociology of Sexuality" class, I'm teaching a sizable chunk of David Halperin's important work on Foucault, Saint Foucault. I came across this quote while preparing that I thought was fabulous. Enjoy your Friday!:

"If there is something self-affirming and indeed liberating about coming out of the closet, that is not because coming out enables one to emerge from a state of servitude into a state of untrammeled liberty. On the contrary: to come out is precisely to expose oneself to a different set of dangers and constraints, to make oneself into a convenient screen onto which straight people can project all the fantasies they routinely entertain about gay people, and to suffer one's every gesture, statement, expression, and opinon to be totally an irrevocably marked by the overwhelming social significance of one' so openly acknowledged homosexual identity. If to come out is to release oneself from a state of unfreedom, that is not because coming out constitutes an escape from the reach of power to a place outside of power: rather, coming out puts into play a different set of power relations and alters the dynamics of personal and political struggle. Coming out is an act of freedom, then, not in the sense of liberation but in the sense of resistance."

-- David Halperin (1995). Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 30.

Conference organizers have just posted audio recordings of from the LumpenCity conference I attended in Toronto earlier this year (see my abstract here; see the conference website here; find my Powerpoint slides here). Here's the audio!

A friend posted this link on Facebook to Walter Kirn's wonderful story from Jan/Feb's Atlantic. It's really quite engaging. It's a memoir-style recounting of the author's days at Princeton, becoming adept not at reading critically or understanding the most important works of our time, but rather becoming an expert in scraping by while doing minimal work. Kirn's story rings true for many of my own experiences with Academia: The real skill is not to know the book you're talking about, but to know how to guesstimate to say something clever about the book without ever having read it. It's performativity in action.

Here's a memorable quote from the piece (which you can read in full here):

With no stored literary material about which to harbor critical assumptions, I relied on my gift for mimicking authority figures and playing back to them their own ideas disguised as conclusions that I'd reached myself. The deployment of key words was crucial, as the recognition of them had been on the SATs. With one professor the charm was "ambiguity." With another "heuristic" usually did the trick. Even when a poem or a story fundamentally puzzled me, I found that I could save face through terminology, as when I referred to T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land as "semiotically unstable."

The need to finesse my ignorance through such stunts left me feeling hollow and vaguely hunted. I sought solace in the company of other frauds (we seemed to recognize one another instantly), and together we refined our acts. We toted around books by Jacques Derrida, and spoke of "playfulness" and "textuality." We laughed at the notion of "authorial intention" and concluded, before reading even a hundredth of it, that the Western canon was illegitimate, an expression of powerful group interests that it was our sacred duty to transcend--or, failing that, to systematically subvert. In this rush to adopt the latest attitudes and please the younger and hipper of our instructors--the ones who drank with us in the Nassau Street bars and played the Clash on the tape decks of their Toyotas as their hands crept up pants and skirts--we skipped straight from ignorance to revisionism, deconstructing a body of literary knowledge that we'd never constructed in the first place.

I came to suspect that certain professors were on to us, and I wondered if they, too, were actors. In classroom discussions, and even when grading essays, they seemed to favor us over the hard workers, whose patient, sedimentary study habits were ill adapted, I concluded, to the new world of antic postmodernism that I had mastered almost without effort. To thinkers of this school, great literature was a con, and I--a born con man who hadn't read any great literature and was looking for any excuse not to--was eager to agree with them.

This lucky convergence of intellectual fashion and my illiteracy restored my pride and emboldened me socially. Maybe I belonged at Princeton after all. I took up with a moody crowd of avant-gardists, who hung around one of the campus theaters tripping on acid and staging absurdist plays by Sartre, Albee, and Ionesco. One production, which I assisted with, required the audience to contemplate a stage filled with unoccupied metal folding chairs. My friends and I stood snickering in the wings, making bets on how long it would take for people to leave.

Who knew that serious drama could be like this? Who knew that the essence of high culture would turn out to be teasing the poor fools who still believed in it? Certainly no one back in Minnesota. Well, the joke was on them, and I was in on it. I could never go back there now, not with a straight face. It embarrassed me that I'd ever even lived there, knowing that people here on the East Coast (people like me--the new me) had been laughing at us all along.

And what better present than to have my blog back up and running. Thank goodness!

Tonight I get to teach Gayle Rubin's "Thinking Sex" article alongside a chapter from Michael Warner's "The Trouble With Normal" for my Sociology of Sexuality class. Fun times!

Hope your day is as swell as mine!

xoxo

T

So in about 5 hours I'll wake up and head to the airport for my flight to Puerto Rico! My parents have generously planned a week-long cruise for us around the Carribean. After a grueling two weeks of grading hundreds of papers, writing almost half a dozen, and taking a Mock Preliminary Exam -- I am READY for a break! Jeebus.

I've never been on a cruise before, but I think it's safe to wager that I'll come back 10 pounds heavier and perhaps a bit redder. And hopefully with the aid of some lemon juice, perhaps a bit blonder! Wew-hew! I'm excited. But it means I won't be posting here much at all. So I hope that Jackson keeps pumping out the goodness, and perhaps a few of the contributors I've invited will step out of the woodwork to introduce themselves and throw some ideas in your face.

xoxoxo

Trevor

There are two competing discourses in the field of American Public Health. You either, a) have total and full responsibility as an individual to make rational choices in your self-interest; or, b) you cannot be capable of making those choices, so the State needs to make them for you. Fast food scapegoating and regulation and anti-smoking legislation are emblematic of the second kind of Public Health fascism, while HIV policy almost exclusively sides with the notion of the rational sexual actor.

Well my University has caved to the fascist demands of Public Health wonks and decided to make the campus "smoke-free." This is allegedly to "reduce the risks of second-hand smoke and ensure a healthier environment." Fuck you. It's about caving to a national movement that is equating smoking with sinning and demonizing "smokers" -- almost a new identity category in this witchhunt. My last university (San Francisco State) became smokefree while I was there and started handing out $150 tickets to anyone caught on campus doing the deed. That's right, $150. Fucked up isn't even the word.

Of course, President Coleman assures us that she'll offer us smokers free patches and "behavioral sessions" to help kick the habit. Word to Coleman: We don't want to kick the habit -- mind your own goddamn business. Again, I'm reminded how similar the anti-smoking movement resembles evangelical anti-gay rhetoric. "Behavioral sessions." And see this earlier post here on how "disgust" at smoking truly resembles "disgust" at homosexuality.

Here's Coleman's announcement.

To the campus community:

In our ongoing effort to create an environment that is healthy for all members of our community, the University of Michigan will become a smoke-free university by July 1, 2011. This will help reduce the risks of second-hand smoke and ensure a healthier environment for faculty, staff, students and visitors.

Several years ago we committed to the MHealthy initiative to improve the health of our community. The decision to become smoke free is a logical and important extension of that commitment, and an expansion of existing practice. The U-M Health System became smoke free in 1998 and the interiors of on-campus buildings are currently smoke free.

This new policy will apply to all U-M campuses. We will be deliberative as we enact this change, with input from the campus community on how best to put our new policy into practice, ensuring that the needs of our University's varied constituents are understood. To help make this transition a successful one, I have appointed a Smoke Free University Steering Committee, to be co-chaired by Kenneth Warner, dean of the School of Public Health, and Robert Winfield, U-M chief health officer and director of the University Health Service.

The committee and its subcommittees - which will involve smokers, non-smokers and former smokers - will address issues of student life, human resources, communications, grounds and facilities, and venues for visitors to the University's campuses. I have asked the committee to submit its recommendations by September 2010.

As we move toward our 2011 goal of being smoke free, the University will offer free behavioral sessions and selected over-the-counter smoking cessation products to faculty and staff, along with co-pay reductions for prescription tobacco cessation medicines. The University Health Service will offer students behavioral counseling and discounts on tobacco cessation aids.

To learn more about plans for a smoke-free University, please visit http://www.smokefree.umich.edu. Also, if you have suggestions or comments about this policy, please share them at smokefreeuniversity@umich.edu.

I look forward to working with you to improve the health and physical wellbeing of our community.

Sincerely,

Mary Sue Coleman
President

So it's final exam week and I'm in my proverbial cave. Of course my laptop picked this week to completely tank on me. Had to go out and buy a new one today. Sigh. What a headache. Three papers down. Two more to go. Then a final exam. Plus 150 papers to grade. Jesus.

But I digress. What I'm really writing to flirt about is the fact that very soon I'll be announcing several regular contributors to this here blog! I'm so excited! They're all really smart, sexy, and fabulous writers, activists, and thinkers. I think it will add some serious depth to the conversations we're having here. Get ready folks!

xoxo

Trevor

My friend Rostom, speaking of the pioneering gay historian, John Boswell pictured above. What a handsome devil!