So, this is the first time I didn’t want to throw one of our books against a wall! Mostly because I enjoy discussions on writing, craft, etc. And Helen Sword’s Air & Light & Time & Space, I think, like most books on writing, provides for an excellent discussion on the topic. First, I want to say that I appreciate Sword starting off with the Diagnostic Exercise: Mapping the BASE.  (I’ve posted my results below.) I tried to be as honest as possible with my responses, but I also know that when it comes to certain aspects of my writing (the artisanal habits, for example), I am super critical of myself and so I probably didn’t necessarily judge myself accurately in that area. (Again, I’m being totally honest!) I do have a writing group (for my fiction writing), but not for my academic work. Since most of my academic work has been for courses/seminars, I’ve always taken advantage of submitting early drafts of my work to professors so I can get feedback on clarity of ideas, etc. But now that I am shifting from being a “student academic” to a career, professional academic, I’m now taking into consideration something that Sword posits early in the book about producing original research, etc.,. as a “successful academic”:

“To be a successful academic, it is not enough merely to have mastered the craft of writing intelligibly. You must also be creative enough to produce original research, persuasive enough to convey the significance of your findings to others, prolific enough to feed the tenure and promotion machine, confident enough to withstand the slings and arrows of peer review, strategic enough to pick your way safely through the treacherous terrain of academic politics, well organized enough to juggle multiple roles and commitments, and persistent enough to keep on writing and publishing no matter what. So how do academics gain this formidable set of skills, if not through formal training?” (65,67).

I think Sword’s subsequent responses to the question posited at the end of that quote speaks to the strength of this book, and to becoming a better writer in general: there is no one-model way of getting the writing/work done. I particularly appreciate how Sword offers a broad range of responses from “successful,” well-known academic writers, like Susan Gubar, for example, to lesser known academics. I find it fascinating when well-known, famous, “successful” writers, of any field, discuss their approach to craft, or the blank page. I think it’s also good in formulating an archive, so to speak, of other writer’s methods of craft that you can utilize and experiment with in creating, or exploring, a method that best suits you.

For example, I like Toni Morrison’s writing routine of: waking up before dawn, to beat the sun; to write at the precise moment the sun rises, to light the page, more because Morrison always said in interviews that she formed the habit of waking up that early when she was caring for her two young sons as a single working mother, and that was the only time in the day she had to write. After the children grew up and left the house she continued to write at that time because she also discovered that that was the time when she was most sharp. Later in the day, she found, that she wasn’t as quick with her thoughts or that interested in writing, say, around lunch time. This was instrumental in helping me in figuring out what time, like Sword also mentions, I am able to produce writing—or more specifically a shitty draft of something. (Not editing, which is the part of writing that I relish and find most satisfying!) Of course, Morrison is referring to her creative work. But I think it is also pertinent in academic writing as well. To paraphrase something in Sword, sometimes writing is work and sometimes writing isn’t pleasurable. Sometimes you just have to find a time to pump out some writing.

Which leads me to the other thing Sword mentions, place. I think finding the sweet spot to write is also important. A few years ago, when my partner and I lived in a tiny apartment in Miami, at times our bedroom was the only quiet place where I could write and work. But I could never get more than a few words, lines, or paragraphs down because I would either get fatigued, or disinterested. When I shared this with my boyfriend he said, “You’re writing where you sleep, there has to be some sort of association between the two things. You have to find another place to do your work.” And that was extremely helpful. (How helpful advice like this is during a pandemic? We can discuss, perhaps, during class.)

Lastly, I appreciate any and all writing guidebooks that demystify and de-romanticize the writing process. And during our class I’m hoping we can share some of our own writing routines, horror stories, etc., to further normalize the complicated and unromantic-ness of writing–especially writing during COVID.

I find that the discourse on debt and higher education that proliferate the public sphere often pertains to student loans. Seldom do such discussion venture toward the relationship between debt, globalization and (higher) education. Thus, this workshop’s aim is to engage in that discussion. Influenced by a reading of Moten and Harney’s chapter on Debt and Study in The Undercommons, a chapter that addresses the necessity of formulating debt in abject “others” in the (re)production and legitimacy of institutions and institutional power/authority, I want to engage in a discussion on the dependency of debt (of people, of countries, etc.) in the construction of institutions, nation-states, (higher) education, etc.,. One of my aims is to explore the language of debt (or how Moten and Harney use the language of debt in their text), which can come to mean, the “poor in debt” and/or those privileged students who receive a higher education who are not (perhaps unconsciously) (in)debted to those forced into debt. Those whose debts fund the privileged students’ education.

            This workshop also relates to our seminar discussion revolving around how the construction of whiteness and white supremacy, should be the central focus of many of the issues in academia that Katina Rogers’ Putting the PhD in Humanities to Work and Brier and Fabricant’s Austerity Blues raise. These texts, which proport to be invested in trying to impart some sort of understanding (or knowledge) on race, gender, and class inequalities (re)produced in higher education (perhaps to get the reader, whoever that reader is, politically engaged?) do not strike at the heart of the debt in which such oppressive authority and power is invested. They do not strike at the ways in which imperial powers, like the United States, invest in the debts of non-white, colonized “others.”

            Thus, my workshop will focus on two text in an attempt to engage in a more concrete conversation about the role of debt in higher education. The first text is from American sociologist Charles Lemert’s entitled, “Mysterious Power of Social Structures,” which addresses the role of social structures in (re)producing oppressive hierarchies of power. The second text entitled, “Yale and the Puerto Rican Debt Crisis: Are Yale’s Puerto Rican Profits Ethical?” is an article published in the Yale Daily, by student reporter, Nick Tabio. The article relates Yale University’s investment in Puerto Rico’s debt, which came to light in the aftermath of student protest over the US response to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Ultimately, my hope in this workshop is to engage in a constructive discussion on the role of debt in higher education and the important role of student protest in “unveiling” the “mysterious” power of social structures.

Reading Materials:

Lemert, Charles. “Mysterious Power of Social Structures.” (Will post this article soon.)

While Rogers’ Putting the Humanities PhD to Work, offers some positive and practical suggestions to affect some change, albeit incremental, in the higher education system, I wanted to focus on one of the gaps that the text did not address. As Zoe mentioned in her post, asking Rogers to delve completely into the complexity of all the issues is not the intention of the work. But I do think Rogers text is a good starting point to further the discussions she is interested in engaging with. Specifically, I want to address how Rogers somewhat centers whiteness and white supremacy in this text, but that centering does not fully address ways to dismantle, deconstruct, or decolonized the structures that support constructions of whiteness.

Having taught in various “academic” setting for over thirteen years as an adjunct professor, or in some other administrative capacity, in my experience I have found that academic structures mirrors, or is an extension of, structures that (re)produce colonization. I have anecdotes to support my claim and will definitely share during class, but to provide a brief example: I often think about something James Baldwin said about how we all have a little white supremist or colonizer (I can’t remember which) on our shoulders whispering white supremist or colonizing things in our ears. A little devil that attempts to influence or govern our behavior, thoughts, and morals. This Baldwin saying, and its referential image almost always arrived when I was around some of my white colleagues. Being light-skinned Puerto Rican with a somewhat ambivalent sounding last name has often granted me access to certain “white” spaces in academia. Spaces where my middle-class white colleagues go to disclose their negative opinions about the predominately Black and Latino and working-class white students’ inability to learn or perform on a level that equals and (re)produces their middle-class, white values/standards. Mostly these colleagues expressed anger and resentment toward the students lack of (re)producing the Western (middle-class white) standards that are responsible for their myriad forms of oppression. They did not see that the Western (middle-class white) standards as the real problem. Nor could they see how actually living a middle-class life (many, if not all of my colleagues who complained about the students in this manner, did not live in the urban neighborhoods where the college/university was located, they lived in the suburbs) furthered the oppression of those they “taught.” After they would disclose how they really felt, I always asked these colleagues of mine how forcing students to learn values that are responsible for their oppression is ultimately helpful for them economically? Since one of the ultimate goals of obtaining a college degree is to secure some kind of career, work or access to wealth.

To put this question in a broader context: How can we decolonize institutions responsible for (re)producing social stratification and deimperialize those who (conscience of it or not) are granted certain privileges as a result of that power dynamic?  I don’t have the answer to that question, and I wasn’t expecting Rogers to either. Nor do I know what that looks like. (Like Rogers states in the book, as an adjunct professor I was highly aware of the fact that I did not have any support or backing from my department. So, I tried to radicalize the students any chance that I got just to create some kind of support—since students have more power than they know! But I don’t know if that is an example of what my question is trying to get at.) Still, I think it should be central to the discussions revolving around the issues Rogers’ book takes up. Especially since I think part of what Rogers is getting at is that these issues are not just economical they are cultural, social and political. And I think that the kind of movements that is necessary to effect change is more radical than what Rogers proposes. To that end I want to connect with what Zoe quoted from Moten and Harney, “The student with interests can demand policies, can formulate policy, give herself credit, pursue bad debtors with good policy, sound policy, evidence-based policy … The student can start her own NGO, invite others to identify their interests, put them on the table, join the global conversation” (67). While Zoe is right, Moten and Harney are warning us to be wary of the connection between academic accreditation/expertise and the world of policymaking, I also find that the corollary to Moten and Harney’s statement is that students with interests can demand policies, can formulate policy, etc. That is, no matter how it is spun (for good or bad) students have tremendous power in academia.

Growing up in the South Bronx, living there for over 27 years, then working as an educator, activist, and artist in the community, and in similar, and not so similar, communities for over 13 years, much of what I read in Brier/Fabricant’s Austerity Blues was not new to me. So, I want to spend some time in my post just sharing some of my thoughts based on my personal experience influenced by my reading of the text. Mostly, I want to continue our discussion on mass incarceration and link that with the connections made in the book between privatization and public education.

All of my siblings work in education. One of my sisters is a K-2 teacher in a charter school in the South Bronx that is part of UFT (United Federation of Teachers). A few years back, my sister attended a meeting (I don’t remember if it was a UFT meeting or a professional development meeting) regarding certain changes that would be made to the standardized exams second graders are given in New York State. During that meeting my sister was shocked to learn that in the past, the outcome of the students’ performance on that exam was used to determine how many new prisons would be opened. My sister was, and is, well aware of the school to prison pipeline—as anyone who is a product of the NYC public school system can share with you—her shock was over the insidious way in which that pipeline is constructed. Even today if you were to walk in my old neighborhood in the South Bronx (161^st and the Grand Concourse) you would find evidence of this inscribed on the landscape. There are almost two dozen public and/or charter schools within a six-block radius, whose epicenter is the Bronx District Attorney’s office, the Criminal Court house, and the Bronx Supreme Court building. This distinction is not lost to the people who reside there. (And for years it has been frustrating for many of us whenever we encountered literature or listened to politicians give some Moynihanian explanation for the lack of Black and Latino men in academia and/or the workplace. Frustrating mostly because we knew where they were and how they got there.) Despite and in spite of this, many of the members of my community, who are predominately working- and middle-class Black and Latino, struggle to efficiently mobilize against these forces. How can you when it’s not financially feasible to homeschool your children? Still, we struggle and continue to find ways to fight for our children’s education.

In recent years, I have been excited that the conversations we’ve been having for decades in our community had finally gained some national attention when Mayor DeBlassio addressed the racial inequality in admissions to the Specialized high schools Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Tech. While Black and Latinos make up over 80% of New York City public school students, according to the New York Times, in 2019 of the 900 students admitted into the specialized high schools only 7 were Black. (I think the number of students admitted this year was just as low.) The exciting thing, for me, was how the discussions about the Specialized high schools led to discussions about the unequal distribution of wealth in public and private schools. Specifically, how the taxes taken from communities like the one I hail from are distributed to private schools in the upper East side and other wealthy neighborhoods in New York. This is important to me because that means that on some level what’s being done and said in my community is making some difference, effecting some change. What would give it a bigger push is the policy changes outlined in the last chapter of Brier/Fabricant’s book. What is missing from those suggested policy changes, however, is a concrete and more direct linkage to the legacy of racist, misogynistic, and white supremacist antebellum and postbellum public policies with the public policies initiated by WWII that shaped public and higher education.

Prior to the start of the semester, a member of my mentor cluster recommended that I read Moten and Harney’s The Undercommons. I, unfortunately, did not have the time to, so this was my first experience with the text. I wish, however, that I had found some time to read this text, just to have the experience of rereading it. Because I think this text requires multiple readings to truly get a concrete grasp of what the authors are trying to say.

Or not.

I’m not sure.

My uncertainty arises from the profoundly abstract prose of the text. This was not my initial reaction, however. My initial reaction was hopeful, with Jack Halberstam’s introduction promising that it “ends with love, exchange, fellowship” (5). I should have, perhaps, paid closer attention to the next sentence, which suggest that the text, or rather the language of the text, moves tangentially. “It ends as it begins, in motion, in between various modes of being and belonging, and on the way to new economies of giving, taking, being with and for and it ends with a ride in a Buick Skylark on the way to another place altogether” (5). For, the text is nebulous at best and profound only in those sparse moments when it struck at something that I could attach it to some concrete ideal or issue.

The chapter, Debt and Study, for example. I found the language in that chapter spoke to the necessity of formulating debt in abject “others” in the (re)production and legitimacy of institutions and institutional power/authority. At this moment in the book, I found that Moten and Harney’s text was attempting to make a connection between globalization and (higher) education. This was profound for me, because this is something that is seldom investigated or even mentioned in the public sphere: the dependency of debt (of people, of countries, etc.) by institutions, (higher) education, for example. And while I still believe that the profoundly abstract prose of the text “problematizes” the attractiveness (for lack of a better word) of the work, in this instance, I found the profoundly abstract nature of the prose alluring and effective. I found that the language used around the words debt, insurance, and credit could mean, the “poor in debt” and/or those privileged students who receive a higher education who are now (perhaps unconsciously) (in)debted to those forced into debt. Those whose debts funded the privileged students’ education. (Even now, in explaining this I feel like I’m falling into Moten and Harney’s stylistic prose.) 

And while the text does provide some great insight of radical resistance to authority, I found that I couldn’t get over the profoundly abstract prose of the work. It was distracting and at time infuriating. Was the work a scholarly, aesthetic, or esoteric endeavor? To be clear, a book does not need to fit one set of criteria. A book can be whatever the author wants it or doesn’t want it to be. My frustration, however, is with the supposed impetus (or was it the supposed impetus?) for this book: to address the issues effecting the “undercommons.” Whether the book is concerned with, or is addressing, the forces of globalization and its effects on the ontological development of Western citizens, and Blacks in particular; or the nature of Black art and its resistance against forces of oppression tied to modernization, I couldn’t say for certain. That wasn’t clear. And I think clarity is vital and necessary, especially when dealing with issues whose politics can literally mean life or death for the people whom this book describes and revolves around.

Lastly, my issues with the book has less to do with Moten and Harney’s text and is more about my personal preference of scholarly work/text, which also revolve around the debates surrounding the approachability of scholarship to the general masses. As an educator, scholar, and writer who uses academic work as a form of social activism, I believe that if scholarship is not approachable and accessible (in every sense of these words) to the general public, the masses, etc., what is the point? What is the point of scholarship if not to influence public policy in some way? (For better or worse.)