94 Days Remaining
00. Lots of things to talk about since my last post. I started to compose this in some sort of chronological order, but it didn't make the variety of topics any clearer, so I'm just going to present the content topically/thematically.
01. Accounts of Humanity
01.a. One of the academic or intellectual projects in which I am engaged on an ongoing basis is (very loosely) a theory of humanity, a kind of unified field theory of who and what we are. This is my version of the general humanist project initiated repeatedly in human history (with varying emphases and methods), although I am clearly operating within a specific tradition inaugurated in the European Renaissance (with roots in ancient eastern Mediterranean cultures), influenced by Indic and Chinese traditions, and permanently (since the 16th and 17th centuries) engaged with issues raised by the Scientific Method and epistemological skepticism. I am, methodologically, an eclectic who draws on sources from a range of academic disciplines (which I justify by arguing that all of our disciplines except the hardest of hard sciences - and I pick their brains too - are struggling with the same family of underlying questions such as "what are we?" "why are we here?" and "what should we do?").
01.b. I recently, while perusing the Baskerville College Bookshop between classes, found that another professor here is teaching a book entitled How We Get Along by J. David Velleman. This book argues that we can understand our activities more clearly using the metaphor of humans as improv actors engaged with other improv actors. To quote the book's description "He argues that we play ourselves - not artificially but authentically, by doing what would make sense coming from us as we really are. And, like improvisational actors, we deal with one another in dual capacities: both as characters within the social drama and as players contributing to the shared performance." That may sound obvious, but the implications he works out are very interesting, especially in terms of morality (what one can expect, how one ought to act - we have a sense of outside standards that we may or may not choose to manifest or to which we may conform, etc.).
01.c. The idea of improvisational performance working within a semi-constrained situationality was really intriguing to me because it dovetails nicely with an idea that I have found enormously productive for thinking about cultural activity (which, for humans, is any activity, but which differs from culture to culture), the idea of culture as repertoire developed by Anne Swidler (most fully in her book Talk Of Love), where culture (this is what my students refer to as the bucket theory) isn't a set of rules so much as a set of tools that we use to solve problems and negotiate situations. Velleman's idea, in conjunction with Swidler's, suggests that we could productively think of those tools as not being only instrumental (we do things with them) but also semi-constraining (if you use Tool X, then using Tool Y next would feel more logical than using Tool W or Z, let alone Tool Θ, even though technically you could use any of them).
01.d. I have only begun to think about how this works, but it's very exciting to me when I feel like I'm seeing a new angle on the way that humans are, or a new way to understand us.
02. Telephone
02.a. Last week I followed Iulia's advice and called Verizon to see if they had any recommendations about how to replace my cell phone with something inexpensive (since the contract is up in July and I'll be getting my own plan at that time instead of remaining on my exing-wife's). To my (largely comical, in retrospect, though it was annoying at the time) surprise, I discovered that my cell phone account is not with Verizon. The only reason I thought it was is that years ago, when I switched onto my exing-wife's account (from being a subsidiary line on Iulia's and Romulus' account - which was and is Verizon), my exing-wife and I talked about carriers and she indicated that it was the same for her and for my old line. Now, this is my memory, and a matter that was not of major importance, so it is entirely possible that I'm misremembering, or that she just slipped and misspoke, so no hard feelings on my part about it.
02.b. Once I knew the situation I called AT&T (the next-most common carrier) and found that they were the right carrier. And, thankfully (again, somewhat annoyingly given the issues since Thanksgiving with getting a replacement phone), their stores cell very inexpensive "Go-Phones." I bought one at the Christiana Mall AT&T store this past Sunday, and it works and I now once more have full cellular service (from my 338 number - please remember that I switched numbers when I separated from G this past summer). I will still probably make some use of the Gmail Phone function, as it is far more convenient to not have to physically hold the phone when sitting at my computer, but I will also now be able to make phone calls while traveling, etc.
03. Delaware Trip
03.a. I had a lovely time, spending most of it with Iunia & Euander at my sister's house, but also seeing my parents, Iulia & Romulus, and (on the trip back on Sunday) Barbatus, Caius & (very briefly before I left) Livia. Barbatus and others commented that I seemed "better," and I think that is entirely due to the positive benefits of spending time with people I love.
03.b. Among other things, I took the kids and my parents to the Delaware History Museum on Market Street in Wilmington (where works a woman for whom I used to babysit when her kids - now in their mid-20s - were Iunia and Euander's ages). The Museum was far larger than I expected (Momula tells me it is located in what was the original Woolworth's Department Store building), with very interesting stuff both on the trains and on the history of Delaware. Euander preferred running around and climbing on stuff, while Iunia was more interested in the content of several of the exhibits. One display featured life-sized papier-mache statues of colonial figures of importance (from New Sweden, through Dutch and eventually English rule under William Penn), and I explained to her that one side of our family is descended from the head of New Sweden, Governor Printz. There was also an exhibit about the Lenni Lenape, and I told Iunia that we are descended from Nanticokes on Momula's side of the family. I loved being able to share that with her, and near the time we were leaving she walked over and asked which one of them was our "great-great-great-great grandfather" again. I love feeling physically connected, over several generations and hundreds of years, to the place that, in my heart, is home. And I loved being able to tell Iunia about that connection. I was also very interested to see her struggling to think about the historical fact of slavery (something she, to her credit, finds appalling and very upsetting), as it was mentioned in several exhibits (though there was no mention of the extraordinary fact that, prior to adopting the US Constitution, some Delaware laws recognized property-owning women and free, property-owning blacks, as having the right to vote - which right was denied after adopting the Constitution, perversely).
03.c. We also went to Hibachi Steakhouse for dinner on Saturday (something Euander and I had been discussing since my arrival on Friday morning), and on Sunday we went ice skating at the Rust Arena at the University of Delaware. I haven't been ice skating in over a decade, though I used to go weekly when a student at UD, and I had a blast. Most of the time I skated hand-in-hand with Iunia, but I eventually (with Selena's help) convinced her to skate on her own (something she can do - but she's very nervous about falling, so she prefers to have someone help steady her). Euander, on the other hand, was very focused on going solo, and fell a lot but always got back up and kept at it. I was very impressed with both of their skill levels, especially because they've had no lessons and have been skating weekly only since the beginning of January.
03.d. Saturday night I spent a few hours with Iulia, Romulus, a grad student friend of theirs from Iulia's department at UD, and their dog, Libby. Romulus, who had the major ankle surgery in the Fall, has made an amazing advance in his recovery. He is now able to stand up on his own, and walk around with either a cane or a crutch (I'm emotionally and ethically obligated at this point, R, to remind you to use either of them when walking no matter how short the distance). The difference is astounding, and I cannot be happier about it (apparently he is right on track for the recovery process, so a lot of my shock is really just having missed the intermediate steps). Libby, the dog, was kind enough to come and sit with (and at one point sleep next to) me on the couch, which I always appreciate.
03.e. I also spent some time with Momula and Dadulus, though less than I would have liked (it was mostly while visiting with the rest of the family), and Momula made me chocolate chip cookies, of which I was able to preserve most for my trip back to Connecticut (apparently love for those cookies runs in the family).
03.f. On my way back north I stopped at Barbatus and Livia's house, and went to dinner with Barbatus and their son, Caius, before picking Livia up from her school (she was arriving back from a band trip to Spain), and then heading back onto the road. I actually left in a hurry, which I am sorry to have done, because I suddenly realized it was getting close to 7pm and I still had 2 hours of driving to do, and was feeling very tired. As it was, I made it back here by 11pm, and then went immediately to bed.
04. School Matters
04.a. We got formal approval to do Ghost Hunting on campus for my Supernatural class, and I was interviewed for it yesterday for the campus student paper. I have also had several former students come by or email to ask if they can sit in on the class meetings, which I've said is fine. This past week we talked about the ways that ghost stories give people in our society ways to express and work through anxieties or questions about embodiment, and next week we'll be looking at the ways that ghost stories provide a way of thinking and worrying about memory.
04.b. During both the interview and class yesterday I was asked (this happens periodically) if I believe in ghosts, and I explained in both cases that I am an agnostic on this question. I explain that I have personally had one extremely clear experience in which I perceived a being (with what seemed to me a definite sense of presence and agency) which I could not physically see but which I could physically delineate in space (i.e., I knew where it was and where it wasn't). I was one of two people who perceived it at the same time (the other was Iulia), and numerous other people had experiences of invisible presence and agency in that house (and even near that location). I am comfortable saying that my experience falls into the parameters of what is usually described in our society as "seeing a ghost" but with the caveat that i) those parameters are very broad and include a wide range of experiences, and ii) I make no claims (and could not, based on the actual content of my experience) about the nature - or even ontological independence - of what I perceived. It is entirely possible that I was completely mistaken or that I had a brain malfunction. On the other hand, I don't know why Iulia would have the same malfunction at the same time, but even if we didn't, a shared experience still does not mean that what we perceived was the "spirit" of a dead human being.
In fact, I believe, based upon examination of evidence, that the majority of alleged ghost encounters (both direct and indirect) can be debunked, and I think that they ought to be. On the other hand, I also know that there are a range of experiences which have thus far resisted successful (or persuasive to all) debunking, and I think that we overstep the scientific method if we simply assume that they are also debunkable without being able to demonstrate that they are. I neither affirm nor deny the existence of spirits, and neither do I make positive statements about the nature of what such spirits might be (dead humans, fairies, angels, demons, elementals, psychic energy signatures, etc. all having been proposed as possible identities). This is worth reiterating in my class because I take peoples' reports seriously as cultural products capable of being analyzed, which is not the same as affirming the ontological claims that such reports involve (e.g. that humans have immaterial souls which exist post-mortem in a disembodied but perceivable state). I am also interested in the ontological (do spirits really exist?) and taxonomic (if they exist, what are they?) claims, but this class is not really the best forum for reaching a final conclusion on those matters. I worry sometimes that people think that the class is an exercise in credulity, when in fact I want to sharpen my students analytical abilities and habits.
04.c. The Religious Studies department at Baskerville College has asked me to teach 2 courses next year, Christian Traditions and Jewish Traditions, both in the Spring semester. Classics has 1 course available, also for the Spring, but so far no other departments (Philosophy, Anthropology, and History) have anything available for me to teach. The Associate Dean of Faculty, who is my institutional (as opposed to departmental) boss, is trying to find some way to keep me here, but unless something changes very soon, it looks increasingly likely that this will be my final semester. I've continued to be asked by other faculty if I'm staying, and they have all been very positive and generous in their wishes that I could, which is professionally rewarding, at least.
05. Final Thoughts for This Post
05.a. I really enjoyed seeing everyone in Delaware last weekend. Euander remarked to Selena, as they were driving to the ice rink that, "When my favorite people get ready to leave, it makes me feel weird inside, like I'm sad." Kiddo, I know. You're one of my favorite people, too. Someday maybe you'll know how much it means to me that I'm one of yours.
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