A Hidden World of One’s Own
by Alison Powell
When walking into the Brooklyn Museum’s recent Kiki Smith exhibit, a large panel presents this brief statement about the exhibit: “The idea of how women found space for creative inspiration in the past is the point of departure for Sojourn, this exhibition by Kiki Smith.” It praises Smith’s “lyrical and highly personal vocabulary of images,” and declares […]
Defending Education
by Alison Powell
Upcoming Contract Negotiations The current PSC contract expires in October 2010. The Adjunct Project and CCU (Cuny Contingents Unite) are working together to determine what demands should be included on the agenda at the upcoming union contract negotiations. We’re already planning for the next round of bargaining; the kick-off will be a meeting with the PSC […]
Book Review: “Beyond the Intensities of the Fountain”
by Alison Powell
A Village Life: Poems by Louise Glück. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2009).
One way to approach a book of poems is to imagine not how the poet speaks, but from what stage. Wordsworth talks out of the woods, on a long walk. Allen Ginsberg shouts to his reader from a crowded bar.
Singing the Body Politic
by Alison Powell
Peter Swirski, Ed. I Sing the Body Politic: History as Prophecy in Contemporary American Literature. McGill University Press, 2009 One December day in 1817, John Keats wrote to his brother the following: “I had not a dispute but a disquisition… on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went […]
The Collapse of the Tenure Track
by Alison Powell
Recently, a subcommittee of the Committee on Contingent Faculty and the Profession disseminated a report on the dire state of tenure-track positions in American universities. Considering that by 2007, almost 70 percent of faculty members were employed off the tenure track, it has become crystal clear that the original goal of tenure — established to ensure adequate compensation and […]
The Second Language of “Standard English”
by Alison Powell
A recent editorial in the New York Times by Stanley Fish, “What Should Colleges Teach?” generated enough controversy and enthusiasm to merit that he write two follow up pieces. In the first, Stanley Fish argues that the problem with English composition courses is they don’t teach composition at all; rather, they are poorly masked cultural […]
Teacher Pay Around the World
by Alison Powell
Just a week ago, the New York Times featured an article in their “Economix” blog: “Teacher Pay around the World” (Sept. 9, 2009, http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/teacher-pay-around-the-world/). The article presents a mass of statistics collected by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) about education around the world, focusing on how the United States measures up. As it turns […]
Every Man Alone, A Phoenix
by Alison Powell
John Donne: The Reformed Soul, a Biography by John Stubbs. W W Norton & Co., 2008. 592 pages. For every man alone thinks he hath got/ To be a phoenix, and that there can be/ None of that kind, of which he is, but he. —John Donne, An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary Psychologically, it seems (despite all […]
Yes, You Can Say No, But the World Will Have to Go
by Alison Powell
Eric Weisbard. Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. 323 pages. Henry Rollins, most notably of the hardcore punk band Black Flag, once said, “I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out […]
The Long View from the Ivory Tower
by Alison Powell
During my first semester at the GC, I’ve been struck by the complicated relationship many of us are negotiating between our responsibilities as academics and as citizens of a troubled city, country, and world. Many of my fellow humanities doctoral students have a latent social worker or justice advocate inside them, and I’ve enjoyed debates where we […]
