It’s birthday time here. Mine is this week, although I am nowhere near 200, but we’ll also be celebrating Walt Whitman’s 202nd birthday with this weekend’s episode of The Ivory Tower Boiler Room.
I think it’s hard to grow up where I did on Long Island and not have at least a passing acquaintance with the name Walt Whitman; at the very least because there’s a mall named for him right in Huntington. At the same time, I don’t recall reading his poetry until well after I was at least familiar in a vague sort of way with the phrase “I sing the body electric.” I loved the tv show “Fame” as a kid, and as did many others, knew the theme song lyrics by heart. But, I was also very lucky to have had a babysitter who had the soundtrack record and a VHS tape of the movie. The movie is 40 years old now, but “I Sing the Body Electric” at the end is still one of my favorite school based movie scenes ever (it ranks up near the top of my list along with “Oh Captain, My Captain” in Dead Poets Society, another Whitman reference.) In sixth grade, I got my hands on a paperback copy of “Leaves of Grass” and I read it until it fell apart. Perhaps I understood the erotic tones of “Song of Myself even if I couldn’t label it that way yet.
I have always found the lines “Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes,”)
to be some of the most incredible words ever written. They’re comforting words to me-they’re words that tell me that all of the feelings I have are real and okay to feel, they’re the ones that remind me “it’s okay to not be okay, and that the only thing I need to focus on is the next right thing.
As I’ve gotten older, Whitman has become intimately tied into the idea of B’tzelem Elohim, the idea that we are made in the Divine Image. That we are all perfection and all flaws and as we are supposed to be. We are. We exist. We affect change in our worlds, in the lives we touch, we must remain open to the idea that there are unknowable things that we do know, and that we are unable to see the threads we form in the universal tapestry as others weave together with us.
So happy birthday, Mr. Whitman. You don’t look a day over 200.
when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit. -Thomas Malory
Lusty for clicks and comments for sure…
When I sat down to write this, I had a cat at my feet, a cat at my head, and one under my right elbow, who was also insisting on sharing my crackers while he pawed at me and tried to prevent typing. He didn’t want me to pet him, just hold my hand still so he could smush his face against it repeatedly until it was very clear that I am his human. Writers and cats just go together, and I assumed I’d include another picture of one of my cats being either cute or interrupting my work, and then I got this alert on my phone:
This notification appeared on my phone…which I had to take a screenshot of and share, of course.
So no cute cat photo, but a heartfelt “thank you” to those of you who have been reading and following along here as I take a minute to reflect on a month (almost) of blogging.
We started the blog to add another way of engaging with Ivory Tower Boiler Room listeners, and to have an outlet to connect with other scholars and podcasters, and even to showcase the work of some writers that might not be seen otherwise. It’s been a more time consuming project than I anticipated when we first began discussing it a couple of months ago, but it’s also something I have found great joy (most of the time) in working on. There are still things to be done, tweaks to be made, before I’m satisfied, and getting the initial pages set up was a source of great frustration, tears, and metaphorical rending of garments, but once that happened, it really has been worthwhile.
There have been moments-mock arguments about the use of singular or plural possessive nouns (writer’s vs writers’) which make me smile, and unexpected decisions to make-our decisions to cover the incident at Fran’s House and then right away after that the tenure case of Nikole Hannah-Jones forced us to confront the question of how political we wanted to allow ourselves to get, even when the issues are ones we care deeply about and already share the same feelings on. We were all taken by surprise when Adam’s post about Nikole Hannah-Jones began climbing rapidly in views; none of us expected that kind of traffic at this stage. We’ve negotiated some minor differences of opinion about things, raced to get things up on time, and really given thought to what direction we want to take in the short term. Having the website and blog has helped us to create some new partnerships and also opened some doors to us, although more can’t be said about that quite yet.
We’ve had our growing pains, and difficult moments. We’ve had laughs. We’ve talked about wishes and hopes for the future of the Ivory Tower Boiler Room. We’ve given ourselves a place to reflect, react, respond and to grow creatively and we want to invite more writers into our space to do that, too.
For me personally, after our first Writers’ Round Table podcast, writing my whole Big Think about not being a writer, I’ve inched closer to actually being able to call myself that, spending so much time writing blog content has meant that my own stuff has been sidelined a little bit and I feel guilty about that! One more step towards calling myself a writer, I guess.
We’ve just introduced our True Crime Tuesday, which will appear most weeks, about true crime and academia. That feature is brought to you by Mary DiPipi, who you’ll hear more from in next week’s Big Think, too. You’ll also see some plays coming up and a column by Tiffany Sowa; I’ve previewed the first one, and it was a really interesting read. There’s also at least one book review in the works, too. We’re thrilled to bring you those three different writers and three different features, but we created this space not only for ourselves, but to share the work and ideas of other people. Next time you read a post, leave us a comment, even if it’s just “hey I read this.” Or even better yet…get in touch with us about something you want to write-it can be a one time piece, an ongoing series-we’re open to almost anything. This isn’t just our space, this is a space for writing community, and in order to do that, we want you to help us build that community.
So here’s to our first month…we hope you continue to visit and that you’ll join us to share, too.
It’s a little ironic, I was the one who proposed that the topic for this month’s Big Think… should be “writing about ourselves as writers.” Of all the members of the Ivory Tower team, I’m the one who really struggles to self-identify as “a writer” and in fact often actively resists the label. (Admittedly, I resist the label “poet” even more, though I have no idea why.) How do you write about yourself as a writer when you don’t think you are one?
Here is the place where I tell you that I have an epic case of imposter syndrome. My superpower might actually be Self Doubt.
Most people, when they hear my response to applying the label “writer” to myself, think that publication is the benchmark for “real writer.” It makes sense that one would hold that as the standard by which to measure, but from the very beginning, I have been clear that publication isn’t the pinnacle, and reaching that milestone would be a bonus prize. (Maybe one day, please?) I fully expect that won’t happen, and if it does, I assume it will lie a long way off. If we assume that “being a writer” is actually a milestone on this journey with an undefined end, it’s probably helpful to begin with the fact that “writer,” “poet” and “published” weren’t signposts on the original map I drew for the journey. In fact, the only goals I set out with were “some kind of stability or consistency in my life” and “to be a better writer.” It’s also good if you’re reading this to know that this journey only started after a very long hiatus from writing, outside of what was required for school or work, and one or two pieces of narrative nonfiction.
Silence is a powerful word. It’s used in catchy slogans to invoke tremendous emotion. Silence is violence, is complicity, =death. Silence can be very powerful. Many of us aren’t comfortable with it in our interpersonal relationships…just think how easy it is to wander to worst case scenarios when a friend or lover is out of touch for longer than usual. On a more global level we have things like GLSEN’s Day of Silence to draw attention to the way LGBTQ youth are silenced in their schools…in books we have the Ellen Jamesians in The World According to Garp who cut out their own tongues in solidarity with a rape survivor whose tongue was cut out by her rapists. I own a Silence=Death t-shirt. I’ve studied the words of MLK Jr pertaining to silence as I studied rhetoric in my English classes. It was trauma and violence in my own life that forced me into silence, at a time in my life when what I probably needed was to be louder than ever. I didn’t set out to write about trauma or violence or any of that, but there are times it just comes out on the page that way.
You never know what might make you find your scream, though. At least I don’t. And in 2020, while everyone was already busy coping with a pandemic, my life was shredding itself in other ways, too. Pandemic stress plus isolation, plus interpersonal stress should have been enough, but throw major illness on top of that, and you’ve got one very lost person, if that person is me. I found myself searching for some kind of stability. But the world is trapped at home, half a year or so into a pandemic, so whatever I decide I’m going to to find, this stability has to be something I can get to on the internet, and it’s also got to be something I can do with limited funds and with the disability/health-related challenges I’m now dealing with. An opportunity to take a short writing class crossed my path and I took advantage. Paper and pens are cheap; I’ve got those in the house already. The class was a disappointment, but during the six weeks of class, a post in a summer-camp alumni group introduced me to Adam who has gently, patiently, and generously mentored me during the last half a year and then some, and who deserves major credit for the writer I am right now. Adam connected me with the writing group and Ivory Tower Boiler Room.
Remember that superpower I mentioned earlier…Self Doubt? Here’s where it comes flooding back. I started showing up at the writing group, daily. The thing is, I’m sitting in a writing group filled with PhDs and PhD candidates, and people with MFAs, too. And then there’s me. I’ve got a social work degree. I’m sitting here in a virtual room full of people with with direction and goals and credentials and I am completely overwhelmed. I felt unprepared, inadequate. But the structure, the stability, it was exactly what I’d been looking for, and it meant I was writing every day. I didn’t have to share, so no matter how bad my work was (or I thought it was,) no one had to see most of it (Adam and I and have continued to work one on one, so I only had to worry about one other set of eyes, though I’ve surprisingly sought out more than that at times.) What makes someone a writer? Can you be a writer if you don’t share your work with anyone? I hadn’t come to the space looking to be a writer, but I was surrounded by them. I certainly hadn’t come with the intention of writing poetry. I thought I had long since left that behind. I started by writing one poem as a joke, a challenge from someone who wondered if I could replicate the emo angst of my adolescence now that I am well into adulthood. I shared it with a couple of people who told me it was good–one of whom even said “You should think about submitting that for publication!” Most people would hear this and be thrilled, right? I hear it and question everything. I am incapable of just believing that my work is good, I’m looking for the cutting remark that comes after the compliment, the one that says something about my amateur status, lack of credentials, or reminds me in some other way that I don’t belong.
Still, one well-received poem does not earn the label “writer” or “poet”–there are a lot of cliches about beginner’s luck or how often stopped clocks are right that I could insert here. By this time I’d already fallen in love with the community, and the routine, and the idea of quitting is just not something I can entertain. I’ve found that the more I write, the more I need to write. Some people might say that’s what makes me into a writer, although I don’t feel it yet.
I came to the Ivory Tower Boiler Room and to my take on our Big Think question with a very clear picture of myself as “not a writer,” but also unable to define what would make me a writer. I came to writing with no intention of writing poetry, and within the Ivory Tower family, I think other than my flaming case of imposter syndrome, one of the other things I’m known for is poetry. Sometimes the world is a funhouse mirror. I keep Pablo Neruda’s poem “Poetry” open on my screen most of the time. He says “Poetry arrived in search of me.” The poet Danez Smith has talked about being the vessel for poems to come through; I have the quote as my pinned Tweet. I keep returning to the quote from Matthew Zapruder that Andrew shared in the introduction to our poetry playhouse episode:
“I really do think that so much of what keeps people away from poetry is a firmly held and incorrect idea about poetic language: that whatever is on the page can’t possibly be what is “really” meant. It’s a paradox, because to read poetry is to look for that transcendence poetry can give, the way it can bring us out of ordinary experience, into different levels of understanding, or more exciting, even magical realms. But in order for that to happen, a reader has to at first be completely attentive to the words on the page, and read at least at first in the same way we would a piece of prose or any writing. Otherwise there can be no meaningful encounter with a poem.”
I’m the mechanism for poetry to come out on the pages. I have this task, a seemingly immense task of taking vision, and turning it into verse. As with many things, I’m wondering “who the fuck thought that was a good idea? But in order to take on the task of writing poems, perhaps even becoming a poet one day, I have discovered some things. I look much more closely at small details sometimes-the fuzz on a peach, the holes in a leaf and how the edges of those holes shift from brown to yellow to green, the look my cat gives me when he’s about to do something he knows he shouldn’t but he wants me to see it, or the look my kids get on their faces when they’re not sure it’s okay to use a “reserved word.” William Blake may not be my favorite poet, but what he says about the world in a grain of sand, I get it. I’ve been working to fine tune my ability to see those things, and to think about how I preserve those details. People tell me I talk too much, but with poems, I’m so deliberate about the words I choose.
I began this piece firmly believing that I’m “not a writer.” I saw it as a title, a label I would eventually earn once I met some undefined set of standards, and I had no idea who was defining those standards either. I started writing last year, certain I would never be “a real writer.” I’m not so sure that’s the truth anymore; I’ve referred to this as my “cocoon phase”-I’m not quite ready to consistently call myself “writer” and for some reason, “poet” still feels unattainable. I do sometimes refer to myself as a writer; in fact, while I was writing this I completely unconsciously typed a sentence which began “as a writer” and had to laugh at myself, and share the moment with my Ivory Tower family who cheered me on. I look at my work differently right now-I don’t automatically hate it, which is progress, and sometimes I even look at it and decide I want to keep it around and work on. There’s even stuff that I’ve worked on, put to rest and pulled out again but I can look at it now as craft or art, with a distance that I couldn’t have a few months ago even after a break from it. Writing has become something I need to do every day now; if I don’t do it, I think about doing it, about what I should be working on or how to make things work. Edits and revisions and timelines take up new spaces in my head and the page I keep with totally random sentences or phrases that sound nice that I might be able to build something around gets longer and longer. I write a lot now–essays, blog content, attempts at short stories and lots and lots of poems. What has surprised me though is that I often read differently now, with attention to different details, and a different critical eye. Words feel different somehow. I am starting to see that I think like a writer, at least some of the time, that I look through a writer’s eyes when I take in what’s around me. I’m not quite ready to call myself a writer yet, but I am emerging into a new space, and discovering words and passions in a new way. It’s thrilling and frightening and comforting all at once. It’s been a process so far, cracking open the door and letting the light in, and letting my words and my voice out. There have been some signposts I never knew to look out for on the path to calling myself a “writer,” changes in the way I connect with and look at my own work, in the way I want to work, in my comfort and willingness to share it with others. I’m confident that one day, no matter how far off it might be, I will be able to fling the door open all the way, and all the words will spill out and I’ll claim my space as a blogger, as a poet and as a writer.
So much wisdom from writers about cats: “A dog, I have always said, is prose; a cat is a poem.”-Jean Burden “I learned a world from each one whom I loved.”Alan Ginsburg, on cats “Perhaps it is because cats do not live by human patterns, do not fit themselves into prescribed behavior, that they are so united to creative people.”-Andre Norton I rarely write without the company of at least one, pictured here is Rocket Alexander Thunderpaws, well known for stealing pens, waffles and popcorn. -EG
Just before he takes a few well deserved days off, Andrew gives us a peek into what’s been going on with his research…
Alice Blake Art
This week, I reached a homoerotic creative “threshold of revelation” (that phrase is borrowed from Angels in America) when adding a few paragraphs to my Whitman dissertation chapter. I had just turned my attention away from Whitman’s fanboy love of Epicurean philosophy to his newfound affection for Homer’s epic verse. It isn’t a light undertaking beginning my queer analysis of Whitman’s 1855 “Song of Myself,” where nude male swimmers run amuck and male lovers are found tangled in the sheets (okay that’s a Hollywood film pitch), and you may ask why does Homer’s Iliad hold such power over Whitman’s poetics? Enter the love story of Achilles and Patroclus…
As soon as I discovered James Davidson’s The Greeks and Greek Love (from 2007), I knew I had found ancient Greek homoerotic gold. He argues, in a chapter focusing on Achilles and Patroclus, that “Clearly the love of Achilles and Patroclus is central to the plot of the Iliad” (315). And later goes on to explain that “The relationship [between Achilles and Patroclus] is by far the most emotionally intense in the poem, and the climax of the Iliad is engineered around it” (315). As I’m questioning why Whitman compared his 1855 Leaves of Grass to Homer’s Iliad, my hunch has been that the erotic energy found among the Greek warriors really spoke to Whitman. But, Davidson’s analysis (which I’m still working my way through and will write about next Sunday) was only the beginning for arguing how, without Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship the emotional intensity may not exist in the Iliad.
One of Davidson’s endnotes points to a foundational 1978 essay by W.M. Clarke called “Achilles and Patroclus in Love.” As I work my way through Clarke’s essay, I’m overcome with classicist envy when reading Clarke’s question like “Were Achilles and Patroclus lovers? It is notorious that much of antiquity thought so, and so represented them— often in very unambiguous language” (380). I am not fluent in Latin or Greek (traditionally required for classics scholars) but have such an appreciation for these languages when poring over Clarke and Davidson’s analyses. For Clarke, Plato’s Symposium is key to understanding how the ancient Greeks understood male same-sex desire (Clarke uses the term “homosexual,” an anachronistic move), but how does Davidson approach Plato’s philosophical reflection on love and eros?
To be continued…
What happens when Andrew finishes Davidson’s book and begins reading Kirk Ormand and Ruby Blondell’s “One Hundred and Twenty-Five Years of Homosexuality?” (found in Ancient Sex (2015) and they discuss the genealogy of approaching sexuality in ancient Greece going from Foucault’s The History of Sexuality (1976), K.J. Dover’s Greek Homosexuality (1978), and David Halperin’s One Hundred Years of Homosexuality (1990)).
(Ancient Sex, edited by Ruby Blondell and Kirk Ormand (2015); The Greeks and Greek Love, written by James Davidson (2008))
Our latest episode, where Adam’s question gets answered and we hear from some other writers.
We’ve got a special celebration coming up next week, all about Walt Whitman’s birthday. You’ll hear from Andrew, of course, but also some reflections from others on their interaction with the poetry of Walt Whitman. Do you have a favorite Whitman poem or a story about your interaction with his work? Drop a comment below, or leave it on Twitter or Facebook for us.
I know you’ve been waiting excitedly to hear more about Andrew and who he was writing for, and here’s your chance in this week’s episode. And if that’s not enough excitement for you, you can see the both parts, all together, in our first YouTube video.
To help you catch up on what we talk about and some of the things we refer to, you might want to go have a look at this post, which will link you to a number of different resources we mention during this episode as well as Adam’s short story.
And when you’re done with our podcast, since we’ve got a three day weekend in many places, there’s an extra day to check out what everyone’s listening to, reading and watching.
Adam’s listening to Belz, Mayne Shtelte Belz and to Bach’s Zion Hört Die Wächter singen, Cantata BWV 140 “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” performed by Alessio Bax. When I asked what he liked about them he grumbled about writing a whole lot of articles this week (which he did, too,) and told me to just tell everyone that “they sound pretty and make me smile” He and I are also trying to listen to the rest of the Schubert piece we started last weekend, too. Season two (the final season) of “Special” on Netflix premiered the other day, too, so I may binge a little of that this weekend. On my reading list is We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry which has been there for a while, and I’m going to take a look at “The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet” by Becky Chambers, which someone mentioned the other day. And Allen Ginsberg’s Howl will get a look for the billionth time this weekend, too, as it helps with a piece of my own that I’m working on.
Andrew is getting ready for a little beach time and for Walt Whitman’s birthday, which will get its own feature, but in the meantime, he’s enjoying the National Theater’s production of “Romeo and Juliet”. It’s also the centennial of Edith Wharton winning the Pulitzer Prize (the first woman to do so,) and so he’s also getting into the BBC’s production of “The Age of Innocence.” And for one of the Ivory Tower Boiler Room bookclubs he’s got James Baldwin’s “Just Above My Head” with him.
Mary’s into the action movies this week and watching the new Mortal Kombat film, which is streaming right now. She’s reading The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, which she says is “giving her Shakespeare vibes!.” The plot? A Prince loses his son the day of his son’s wedding and the Prince is driven by anger and fear of a dark prophecy to carry on his family’s blood line, even if that means divorcing his wife and forcing his son’s bride to marry him. Spooky, right? Some Place Under Neith is Mary’s podcast recommendation this week. Named for a missing moon orbiting Venus called Neith that was discovered in 1672 by Giovanni Cassini and seen over thirty times until 1770 when it mysteriously went missing. this podcast is focused around bringing attention to missing persons’ cases (particularly women) and how listeners can help. Mary tells us, “the podcast combines both true crime and comedy brilliantly and the hosts have great chemistry. I’ve linked the first episode for you, because when I start a new podcast I like to start at the beginning before jumping around, but this week’s new episode is about the 2019 disappearance of Angela Green.
Leave us your recommendations; we’re always looking for things to check out.
And now, I’ll put a bookmark in it-I hear a cat yowling for some attention in the other room.
Tomorrow, we are carrying on with the release of Part II of our Writing Roundtable podcast. You can listen to Part I here and you can watch it on Youtube here. That’s also a first! Remember that two drafts of the short story we ended up using as a recurring example are available for your perusal: “At the Sign of the Red Lion, Anno Domini 1674”. Enjoy!
We’ll have recommendations up tomorrow–things we’ve been listening to, reading, that sort of thing. Until then, enjoy reading around our website!
Nikole Hannah-Jones; Photo courtesy of the New York Post
When did we become a news site?
We didn’t, but there will occasionally (read: no more than once every 10 minutes) be an item in the news that bothers us so much we have to talk about it (or boost the signal of people who are already talking about it). This will especially be true if we feel we have something unique and legitimate to say.
The 1619 Project was championed by a New York Times journalist named Nikole Hannah-Jones, who is now being offered a professorship at the University of North Carolina, despite the fact that she does not have a PhD. She does have a Pulitzer and a MacArthur Fellowship. This is huge, on its face. There were very few BIPOC faces at my graduate English department. We have interviewed a single Black person at the Ivory Tower Boiler Room. It’s a failing we expect to correct sooner rather than later, but a failing nonetheless. Academia has a problem with recruiting Black people, and if universities are to increase the ratio of Black people with professorships, they may need to recognize that there is a roadblock somewhere up the road; that Black people in particular are not finding their way to, or through, the PhD programs, and that diversifying the faculty, not only racially but economically, may involve hiring non-PhDs to professorships, including to prestigious professorships like the one in question.
Hannah-Jones was recruited by the University North Carolina (April 2021) to be the Knight Chair Professor of Race and Investigative Journalism. As a professor, having a chair with a name on it is huge.
Now the bad news. Hannah-Jones was not offered tenure, despite the fact that previous holders of the Knight Chair were given tenure. One might argue that because she does not hold a PhD, the university needs a ripcord in case the relationship does not work out. But the faculty of the Journalism School did not seem to think so. In any case, if she were such an X-factor, they would not have offered her one of the biggest plums a university is capable of offering.
The actual text of the Washington Post article makes for fascinating reading, if you’ll spare me a moment’s indulgence:
“On Thursday afternoon, board chair Richard Y. Stevens told reporters in a videoconference session that trustee Charles G. “Chuck” Duckett had raised questions to the UNC provost in advance of a January meeting about a proposal to grant tenure to Hannah-Jones. Duckett chairs a committee with oversight of university affairs.
“Stevens did not elaborate much on what the questions were, but he said it is not unusual for trustees to probe further, “particularly candidates that don’t come from a traditional academic-type background.” Stevens said Duckett suggested postponing the proposal to allow time to consider the issues.
“The result, Stevens said, was that the matter never came to a vote. Top university officials did not present “any recommendation on this appointment to the board, nor did the board take any action on this appointment,” Stevens said. “Let me stress that.”
“Stevens insisted that the board had not denied Hannah-Jones tenure. “That did not take place,” he said.
“University officials instead pursued an alternative plan that did not require board approval: Hannah-Jones was offered, and accepted, a five-year contract without tenure. Susan King, dean of the journalism school, wrote in an email to her faculty on Sunday that Hannah-Jones would have an option to be reviewed for tenure within five years.”
What I get from this parade of opaque language is that the board of trustees was not going to sign off on the appointment but they also did not want to be seen not signing off on the appointment because that would have caused backlash (which this did anyway because people can read between the lines). So the hiring committee found a way to back-channel her appointment, but in doing so could only offer a five-year contract, tenure-free. If I had to guess: the board of trustees was a hung jury, if you’ll pardon the expression, with perhaps one holdout saying he was going to be goddamned if that woman was going to get a professorship at his university. Or something like that. The only reason I can conceive of for a public institution like UNC not to publish its rationale concerning such a massive PR fumble like this is if the rationale is worse than the speculation.
It is possible that they are afraid a woman who did not come up through the usual channels and is not beholden to the university system for her livelihood and sense of self-worth will actually use the protections of tenure as they are allegedly meant to be used–for speaking truth to power. But in such a case, the lack of tenure would be a poor tool for bridling her brashness. A professor who came up through the ranks can’t afford to get fired, because where would they go? She, with her connections to the New York Times, her name-recognition, her MacArthur money, can afford to throw her weight around–even without tenure–more than most professors with tenure ever do.
Some of the chatter is saying that she is not receiving tenure because she is Black, which is a possible factor, no doubt. It wouldn’t be the first time a Black woman was denied job security.
The strongest possibility to my admittedly outsider perspective is that she is not the X-factor; everyone else is. She is being promoted to this grand platform at a university on the basis of her work with the 1619 Project, which is itself a political target (again, it’s not controversial; something is only really controversial if the opposing arguments have merit and we would all do well to remember that people who are disagreeing, however fundamentally,with the facts as 1619 Project presents them are not opposing the project as a whole). The University is therefore afraid that her infamy among conservative race-baiters will blow up in all their faces. In which case, they would naturally be expected to shield her from the worst of it so she can keep doing the threefold work of mining the vein of her own research, hosting educational events, and teaching her students to be the investigative journalists of tomorrow. But large, self-protecting institutions aren’t great at taking the moral high ground. So they see ‘controversy’ where a private (and reasonable) person would see bullying and hectoring and meretricious gotcha-ing.
The final stop on this train is the opaque system of governance at universities. The board of trustees of the university did not accept the recommendation of the journalism faculty. Why? It’s not a good look that they didn’t. If the university would aspire to a single iota of institutional transparency in a matter like this then we would not be having this conversation—guessing back and forth about whether their motivations are racist, self-serving, cowardly, or merely all three. It’s one thing when a celebrity lives a private life and wants to keep the reporters away from it. But a university is not a person and does not deserve privacy. And Hannah-Jones should still take the post, because a seat at the table is a seat at the table. I hope she takes the job and I hope she brings all the fireworks they fear, and they still can’t pull that ripcord, because doing so would expose them as bad-faith actors.
Update: Nikole Hannah Jones has been pushed through the tenure process, in part by her own credentials, but in a large part because the uproar over one trustee’s decision to deny her tenure appears to have forced the board’s hand. So where do we go from here? The issue in this debate was always the outsized influence a single board of trustees member had over the tenure process. Let us take a moment to remember:
-Boards of Trustees are made up of wealthy people, regardless of their other academic credentials. In this case, Hussman is a newspaper publisher, which does not mean his concerns are the same as those of a reporter.
-Despite their lack of academic credentials, the board of trustees–in this case, a single board member–had the power to overrule every academic vote in favor of Jones’s tenure.
-Clearly the next great overhaul in the teaching of American history needs to concern itself with the Venn-diagramatic influence of money and race in the founding and running of impartial institutions like colleges… and journalistic venues. That will probably not go over any better with the board of trustees, but it is still work worth doing.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and today specifically is Mental Health Awareness Day.
The Ivory Tower Boiler Room has brought you two episodes about the importance of mental health (Part 1 and Part 2) and we are committed to continuing the discussion around mental health. Caring for your mental health is no less important than caring for your physical health and when either one is not attended to, the other may suffer as well; as a person who lives with multiple chronic pain conditions, I am hyper-aware of that. There may be 31 days devoted to mental health awareness, but it truly is something to be aware of every day of the year.
Andrew and Adam started the Ivory Tower Boiler Room podcast last summer as a way to help cope with the pandemic, when we were all feeling combinations of grief, confusion, fear, anger and other emotions. The writing group began, Mary joined in and later on, Erika did as well. The four of us began our collaboration on the mental health episodes after learning more about what we each had to contribute to the topic. As we prepared for and recorded the episode we realized that we enjoyed the collaboration and that together, we had some ideas for how to make the Ivory Tower Boiler Room’s resources more accessible to the rest of the world. All of that is nice to know, but it doesn’t address the fact that attention to our mental health is a vital part of our collaboration and one of the reasons that it works well. As writers we deal with a certain amount of personal vulnerability in our work, and in the process of sharing our work, even if it’s just with each other, We also strongly push self-care on each other. Frequent check ins and respect for the space and time we need to deal with mental health needs are really important for our work together. In practice, that means things like making sure to prepare ahead of time as a team to help make sure Andrew knows what we need ready to go before he goes on vacation, discussing ahead of time his limits on what he is or isn’t comfortable handling while on vacation and having a plan in place to do what needs to be done to keep the Ivory Tower running while he recharges and takes the break he needs. On a day to day basis that means that we’ve discussed openly as we’ve figured out our work together questions like “what tools work best for you,” or “how can we set that up so that you’re able to know what needs to be done but that it doesn’t cause anxiety when you see what’s unfinished, even if it’s not tasks that belong to you?” For us as a team, self-care and attention to the impact that mental health has on our work are some of the tools we use to get our jobs done. The value of honest communication about mental health needs is also something we use to help keep our team working and healthy. That means talking about when we’re struggling, acknowledging the value of time with our therapists, being honest when we’re feeling stressed, doing our best to respect limits and boundaries and working together to resolve conflicts before they escalate whenever possible, and as soon as we are able to when they do boil over. We each bring our own baggage to the table, and understanding that cannot be underestimated, but I know I’ve been challenged at times to work through mine by teammates, and I hope I’ve been able to give the same kind of gentle push to others when they’ve needed it. We work as a family because we respect the different places we come from and prioritize our well being and that includes our mental health. We encourage you to take care of yours not just this month, but year round. To those who are struggling, we support you. To those supporting someone who is struggling, we support you, too. Your story isn’t over yet. Help tell the rest of it.
I’m sure you’ve already listened to last week’s episode, Part I of our first Writers’ Round Table and this week we’ll be bringing you part II, where Andrew will answer Adam’s question and talk about writing for his younger self, and we’ll talk more about our audiences and even hear from some listeners. And Adam still doesn’t say “fuck.”
If you haven’t already read Adam’s short story At the Sign of the Red Lion there are two versions of the draft that he’s chosen to share: here and here.
Some of the other things we mentioned in the first half of the episode that might be interesting for you to check out:
Not mentioned in the episode, but also highly recommended by several Ivory Tower members is Stephen King’s book, “On Writing”. It’s hard to choose just one quote from the book to share, but I am particularly fond of this one, which speaks to the romantic in me, and to my poet’s heart which understands that I am the mechanism by which words and visions are shared “Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.” I hope that inspires you as much as it does me.
Keep listening, keep reading, keep writing. We look forward to hearing what you’ve got to share with us.
