Well, it’s just about 11:30 on Valentine’s Day. I taught this morning–saw the second part of the Frontline Documentary The Persuaders–and I will teach again at noon and 1:30. After that is the Rep Council meeting that everyone has been waiting for. We will be considering a vote of no confidence in Kutztown University President, Javier Cevallos. All the discussion that has taken place across campus, in our department meetings, on-line, on the blog, and in the media now is a backdrop for a decision today. The decision? Whether or not APSCUF-KU should proceed with a vote of no confidence.

Yes my friends…these are heady times. What has been interesting throughout this discussion is that there has been virtually no discussion on the specifics of APSCUF-KU’s bill of particulars–that is, of our actual reasons for introducing a discussion of a vote of no confidence. What’s also interesting is to watch the dynamics of how faculty members (in particular) relate to the issue of a no confidence vote. I don’t mean whether specific faculty members do or do not have confidence in President Cevallos. No, what I am thinking about has to do with how faculty responses show particular understandings of democratic literacies–that is, the everyday practice of democracy.

I recall in Habermas’s study of the “bourgeois public sphere,” a discussion of the interconnection between that public sphere and particular bourgeois values (and I don’t mean to position “bourgeois values” here in a derogatory sense like they’re “bougie.” I am thinking of these values in their historical sense). I am thinking about this because much of the discussion around the vote had to do with the way the discussion was introduced and how and through what media the discussion was introduced. Put another way, the tenor of the public discussion (at least in terms of the faculty discussion) seems to point to some kind of Emily Post guide to the ettiquette of public discourse, or institutional behavior. Something like that.

More to come on this for sure…I’ve gotta go teach.

So, I’m planning for conference number three this year…I thought it would be a good idea to begin teasing out the distinctions and connections among my papers. For my CCCCs paper, “Save Our School: Multimodal Activism and the Struggle to Save the Early Learning Center at Kutztown University,” I will be looking at how members of an emerging coalition of faculty, students, and parents made, in Nancy Welch’s terms, “rhetorical space through concerted, often protracted struggle for visibility, voice, and impact against power interests that deny visibility, voice, and impact” (Welch 477). In particular, this paper is interested in the “multimodal” character of that work. That is, the “Save the ELC” coalition not only made use of traditionally recognizable forms of activism like petitions and demonstrations, but also made use of new technologies and social networking software in making their case. I am also interested in how that rhetorical space took shape and how tricky it was to sustain it as the struggle to save the ELC wore on. For the record, the struggle continues and there remain serious concerns about the university’s long-term commitment to the school.

My second paper is for RSA in May: “Holding Back the Membership: Breaking Cycles of Despair and Rhetorics of Power in a Contract Negotiations Year.” This paper is part of the panel “Responsible to Whom for What?: Complex Audiences at Cross-Purposes in Labor Organizing,” with my fellow APSCUF-KU Exec member Ken Ehrensal as well as Seth Kahn and Cheryl Wanko from West Chester University. In that paper, I look at a dispute within members of our union, APSCUF, during our recent contract negotiations. I am particularly interested in the ways in which dominant and emergent concepts of unionism played out in terms of strategy and tactics and how members sought to remake a union identity.

Finally, I am now working on a paper proposal for the 2008 Watson Conference and I am thinking about similar issues. At the moment my working title (emphasis on “working”) is “Mediated Advocacy: A Look at the Impacts of New Technologies in a Campus Campaign.” We’ll see where this one goes. I just put the rough sketch of this paper together today (finally)…still very rough, but you get the idea.

As I was working on the Watson proposal today, I began to think about linkages and what shape these three papers might take as a project–both in terms of publishing, but also in terms of a direction for further scholarship. I guess I like the questions I am posing and the fact that each paper is taking up similar questions in different contexts. And all of this builds nicely, if I don’t say so myself, from Rachel’s and my forthcoming book, Democracies to Come. If there we are working through notions of rhetorical action, political-communities-in-struggle, and micro-negotiations of hegemony, these three papers seem like a fitting extension and elaboration on that work. Interesting.

Sorry for all this “insider” talk–inside my head that is. I just needed to get some of this stuff out on the page. I think it’s time to think about hitting the sack for the night. It’s a big weekend after all. My grandmother is turning 90! And she still bowls.

The other night I had trouble sleeping…too much going though my head. Instead of letting my restlessness go to waste, I decided to pay Dio a visit just to run some stuff by him. When I told him what was keeping me up all night, he laughed and laughed and laughed. “All I can think about is making sausage,” I tell him. No matter how hard I tried, I could not let my thoughts settle into sleep.You see, I like sausage. I like those sausage biscuits with egg at Wawa, I like summer sausage, I like turkey sausage, Italian sausage, chorizo sausage, even tofu sausage. Don’t get me wrong, I am not claiming to be some kind of sausage “aficionado.” I just like the stuff and think that the world is a better place for having sausage in it.

But here’s my conundrum: when I start thinking about what goes into making sausage, I get a little queezy. It’s rather disconcerting. I mean, it’s one thing when the image I have in my head is of the family farmer bringing her or his pigs to the local butcher. You know, the kind of images conjured up by Bob Evans commercials. It’s another thing entirely when you have the image of factory farms and the mass production of meat that we are introduced to in Fast Food Nation, for example. You see, I want to imagine the sausage I eat through the Bob Evans lens. But, I confessed, that’s difficult to do. Yeah, I know, I could go to Dietrich’s Meats or Allentown’s Farmer’s Market and then I would have a better idea how my sausage is made. So, maybe I’m just being lazy.

“Look,” Dio said, “you’re coming at this all wrong. I hate getting serious on you, but you’ve thought yourself into the classic consumerist corner.” He explained his surprisingly complex theory of that consumerist corner. I’m still thinking about it.

Let’s see if I can reconstruct it a bit here. My problem was that I was caught (even more than I had realized) by a rather sophisticated pattern of argument. First, there’s the obvious issue of the real conditions of production–that is, the “way” that sausage is made. It’s true that mass production of sausage on the factory model leads in pretty disturbing directions. Sausage, after all, is mostly made up of scrap pieces of meat–and not all of the those pieces of meat are, shall we say, “meat.” There’s all sorts of stories of rats, feces, and pieces of human flesh making it into mass produced sausage. After all, with everything ground up, it’s not easy to distinguish scrap ham from scrap rat. Because of these (very real) stories, we hear the cliches “you don’t want to know how sausage or legislation is made.” The force of that piece of conventional wisdom is to encourage you to ignore the process of sausage-making. Ignorance, after all, is bliss. It’s an odd, but powerful, sort of move. If we accept this notion, then we are encouraged to associate the ability to enjoy or desire sausage on the condition that we “forget” it’s process.

I have to admit that at this point Dio almost lost me. I mean, usually he’s kind of jolly…but here he was taking me for a winding intellectual journey. I was really just trying to put the whole sausage thing out of my mind.

Anyway, Dio stopped his discussion–perhaps recognizing my fading attention–to make sure I noticed the point he was about to make. “Notice that ‘forgetting’ is put back on the individual.” Huh? He pointed out that there was a conceptual shift in the argument from the actual process of sausage-making to the individual’s ability to enjoy sausage. The individual’s ability to enjoy sausage depends upon her or his willingness to forget about the process of sausage making. He insisted that that was an important point.

He explained that once the focus is shifted onto the individual, three things can happen. First, and most obviously, attention can be taken away from the process of production, insulating those making sausage from scrutiny. Second, the more abject the process of sausage-making is made, the greater the gap becomes between the everyday and the process of sausage-making. That is, if sausage-making is marked as “gross” or “horrific” then in the everyday we will turn away from it, thus decreasing our familiarity and comfort with the process. Finally, if someone calls attention to the process of sausage-making and the specific problems located in the sausage factory, others can now discipline that person on the grounds that she or he is interfering with her or his enjoyment or desire.

“Are we seriously talking about sausage alienation?,” I asked with a tinge of sarcasm.

“In way, yes. But remember, it’s never just about sausage…especially when we have a nice piece of conventional wisdom that uses sausage as a point of comparison,” I was told.

That reminded me of one of the books we are reading for my Advanced Composition class: George Lakoff’s, Don’t Think of an Elephant. Lakoff’s book deals with framing–specifically how progressive and conservative discourse is framed by different concepts of the family. He argues that “framing is about getting language that fits your worldview. It is not just language. The ideas are primary–and the language carries those ideas, evokes those ideas” (4). So, if we look at the conventional wisdom as a set of ideas (a commonplace argument, perhaps???), we’re talking about the ideas that are conveyed by the conventional wisdom about sausage-making. Given the grin that was extending across his bearded face, I could see that I was finally catching on.

“You are always talking about how rhetoric and democracy arose at the same time,” noted Dio. “So maybe it will help to do one of those flashback sequences for you. By 600-500BC, sausage-making was a pretty common practice. Common enough that folks in China, Greece, and Rome were mentioning it in their daily conversations and even in some of their notes,” he explained. “It was common enough, that is, that the concept of sausage was available for use as a metaphor. Don’t forget that there were a whole lot of people that hated the rise of democracy…and the idea of grinding up a bunch of different meats and packaging it in an intestine offers just too easy of a metaphor for those who hated democracy.”

I began to follow…surprisingly. I gave it a whirl.

So, basically, the sausage-making metaphor does work in a culture. If we move away from the particular issue of sausage-making and look for those “ideas” that are connected to the language, we could argue that:

1. One of the ways to divert attention away from the actual process through which something is made–e.g. decisions–and turn it toward the individual’s negotiation of her or his relationship to that process, has the affect of shielding the process from scrutiny. In effect, it takes the actual process of “making decisions,” to continue the example, as a given. As an individual I am asked to choose between discomfort and pleasure. If I agree to accept the process as a given, I am rewarded with enjoyment. Why be upset with something that can’t be changed? Or is the result of a force beyond one’s control?
2. If I assume that the process of making decisions (i.e. sausage) is messy, disturbing, upsetting, etc., then I will be inclined to not inquire into the specific ways in which they are made. The more common it is for me to “look away” from the process of decision-making, the less familiar the process becomes. That is, one becomes alienated from the process of decision-making. We know, however, that decisions still need to be made (someone has to make them) so we turn to a particular caste of people who make decisions. We enter into an uneasy agreement–you make the decisions and we will not ask how those decisions are made.
3. There is a problem with this agreement though. What happens when the products of the process (decisions, sausage, medications) are problematic, unhealthy, or dangerous? In those cases, we are in a bind. We don’t know how the decisions were made, so we can’t tell if there was malice, carelessness, or incompetence. We are not, after all, familiar enough with what goes into the process to evaluate it. If someone does begin to call attention to the process and speak in a language that suggests knowledge of the process of decision-making, we are confronted with the first bargain we made: we agreed to diverting our attention away from the process of production in exchange for pleasure, comfort, status, leisure, whatever. And if we have a sufficient investment in these latter things, we will view the person calling attention to the process as attacking us–we will defend ourselves. Ultimately we have to defend ourselves in a different language, though, since we cannot defend ourselves in the language of process. We call attention to the improper “way” in which the person is raising the question. We would draw attention to how the person is crazy for critiquing something that cannot be changed. We chastise the person for being “uncivil” or “improper.” We call attention to the fact that the person broke a social compact to turn our attention away from the process of making sausage.

“Hmmm,” I concluded.

Dio smiled again, handed me a cup filled with wine, and leaned back into his chair. “Now don’t go and make the same mistake you made last semester.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got yourself all worked up with your analysis, I see. Just don’t turn your analysis into a rubric. There’s danger in introducing a false opposition that can lead you back to frustration,” he advised.

“Like….?”

“I like the whole thing you did there in your ‘#1? about exchanging pleasure for an agreement to ‘look away’ from the process of making X. However, that does not mean that ‘pleasure’ or ‘joy’ is in opposition to critical reflection. There is joy in decision-making, joy in critical analysis, joy in trying to draw attention to problems in the way things are done. The apparent opposition is also disciplining–it wants you to feel like you have to set aside joy if you are to be critical. How many of your lefty pals have made that mistake historically.” He paused for a moment, perhaps caught by a memory, and took a sip of wine. “Carnivals are important. Even if you are looked upon as improper or crude. If joy is seen as improper or crude, then we learn something about our cultures.”

We sat in quiet for a while until sleep finally closed in. I bid Dio goodnight and headed to bed. “Sausage,” I muttered. He smiled.

Sometimes, on my 30 minute commute to work I replay words and arguments over in my head to try and get a better grasp of their contours and what they seek to do, the affects they have, etc. In my co-authored book with Rachel Riedner, one of our chapters takes a look at the role of despair in neoliberal rhetoric. We describe the role of despair in neoliberal rhetorics as follows:

What we see in the everyday working of despair, is the work of hegemony at the level of habitus—“a system of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions” (Bourdieu 82-3). That is, despair is not limited to one specific kind of experience within neoliberalism. Rather, it is a transposable disposition, flexible enough to contain expressions of resistance. As part of a hegemonic discourse, despair sneaks into everyday arguments about current conditions and possible alternatives (79).

This “transposable disposition,” in my mind, is part and parcel of a kind of “neoliberal commonplace”–a persistent pattern of cultural argumentation.

I first started working on questions of despair when I was first getting involved with our local union chapter and teaching an Advanced Composition course called “Global Literacies.” In both my union work and in my class I noticed a recurring pattern of moral outrage followed by some version of the statement: “there is nothing we can do.” On the one hand, this frustrated the hell out of me–especially in the union context–but, the persistence of the argument made me think that I should be thinking about what it means and what it does [see excerpt for a brief intro into how Rachel and I situated this issue].

Anyway, that set me on my current path of taking an interest in the “micronegotiations” of hegemony, so to speak. That is, the everyday arguments made in everyday contexts that rise to the level of “commonplace arguments.” You could say, I am working on a “commonplace book” that focuses on neoliberal rhetoric [if you are interested in what a commonplace book is, check out this power point presentation floating out there on the web].

As you may or may not know, one of the hot conversations on our campus right now is a vote of no confidence in our university president. At this point, the issue is part of a public discussion and we do not know whether or not such a vote will be taken. But the issue has certainly sparked a spirited discussion among faculty and in the community at large. Some of the emails that have made it into my “commonplace book.” More accurately, they have occupied my mind during my drives to campus each morning and evening.

Here’s a brief list of some of the issues I have been thinking about:

• how do individuals identify with institutions, in this case with our university
• what is considered “proper” and how codes of civility and manners overlap in discussions of “process” or “the way” an issue was handled
• public image of an institution. In particular, public images as constructed in images and PR material (reputation) and/or public images based upon actual practices
• shades of progressive–”liberal” ways of seeing
• The role of institutional authority in argumentation (thinking Robin Lakoff’s arguments in The Language War here).

Oooops…look at the time. Gotta run to a meeting!

I don’t know why I feel the need to re-post posts. “If you were stranded on a desert island, what would you bring.” But this is not a desert island. I could simply put a link to this previous post…but, no. I have to re-post.

I was actually about to begin writing about on of the recent emails circulating on campus. I want to turn my rhetorical lens there and see what happens. I guess I wanted to provide a little context? After spending so much time talking about context with my students, maybe it’s rubbing off too much! Anyway, here’s the set up for the post I may yet write today:

Well it’s 2008 and D. and I have had some time to relax and talk about our cookery and all things rhetorical. In particular, I’ve been thinking a lot about (re)connecting parts that have been alienated or at least estranged for a few years now. The connection between my research, my teaching, service and committee work, and my union/activist work. Or course these areas have never been completely separate, I have found my time at Kutztown has stretched each of these areas in somewhat different, and often competing, directions.

Put another way, in the process leading up to tenure, I agreed to serve on this committee, this committee, and that committee. My goal was to do the work that that committee needed done. I continued to work on my book (just finished! and soon to be published!) that continued questions and concerns that grew out of my time in Washington, DC and my first couple of years here. And I learned the ins and outs of our local union, worked to change our union, and am now a member of our executive committee. I can look through my eight (more?) tenure binders and see all the work I’ve done. And, I could, I guess, be proud of that work. However, there is something consistently troubling about it–I struggle to find the connecting threads. That is, I feel that in my time here I have been trying to negotiating four competing “identities,” so to speak. It seemed as though I was constantly responding to each of these areas separately.

So, I’ve had a break now and have spent time with my good ole pal Dionysus and have been shifting my gaze so to speak. The questions that I am now trying to work with are about reconnecting all aspects of what I do–instead of compartmentalizing and juggling.

What does that mean specifically? Well, with our book done, I will now be turning to the everyday “rhetorical work” I do in the union as one of my areas of research. I want to consider, analyze, and learn from these struggles as part of a rhetoric of advocacy. A new course I am just about ready to present to my department is called “Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy”–again, connected. My next two conference papers–on at CCCC’s in New Orleans and another at RSA in Seattle–will analyze the struggles around the ELC and our contract negotiations. I plan on turning both of these into publications.

Why do it this way? Well, it seems to me that the reason I got into this whole thing–academe, that is–was the same reason I’ve been an activist, a unionist, and an agitator. I believe in democracy and the struggle to equality, justice, and what is right. I believe, as Frederick Douglass put it: “power cedes nothing without a demand.” I teach writing because I believe that writing and literacy are key to developing critical democratic citizens and advocates. I work to change the university because I believe colleges and universities are one of the few places left that hold out the promise of critical inquiry, democratic exchange, and citizen education.

So, I hope to use this space, too, as a space to think through things…to, draft my thoughts and to build a written trace of my inquiries.

One of the things that got me to write today was something I’ve been thinking about over the past several days as I drive to and from work. Our union is introducing a discussion about of a vote of no confidence in Kutztown University President Cevallos. And, as you can imagine, this has caused a stir. Once again I am all too aware of patterns of arguments. Arguments that you become quite familiar with if you do any kind of oppositional, activist work. I began thinking of them as “commonplace arguments,” that can be addressed as a “class of argument.” So, I’ll do some of that here. And I particularly like the following way of thinking about “commonplaces” in rhetorical traditions:

Commonplaces:

“Commonplaces are small nuggets of language that carry a lot of weight for a particular group or in society at large, at a given time. They can be slogans, bumper stickers, catch-phrases, or simply pieces of language that we use all of the time, but which are more complicated than we realize, perhaps because they are so very common. Because they can be evoked in the same way as a slogan or an idea, objects such as ‘the flag,’ and documents such as ‘The Constitution’ (especially ‘The First Amendment’ and ‘The Second Amendment’) also function as commonplaces in rhetoric.”

“Commonplaces: An Introduction,”

Professor John Hilgart, English Department, Rhodes College
and Professor Van E. Hillard, First-Year Writing Program, Duke University

Talk to you soon!

I’m reposting this from my blogger site as well…it is close to how I am thinking lately and is something that I want to work more on. I can see this making it’s way into on of my conference papers this year…

<o:p>**********************************
Email to faculty, 1/23/2008
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</o:p>

The Value of the Word

I have been thinking about some recent concerns about the way the issue of no confidence was raised at the beginning of the semester. In particular, I am thinking about the issue of Rep Council members not having any idea about the possibility of a vote of no confidence—or the public discussion of the possibility of a vote of no confidence. I’ve looked back over my own notes and have found reference to several members who raised the issue. I can also recall several occasions in which the issue of no confidence was raised and discussed. I can’t square the two positions. That does not mean that I think anyone is lying about what they remember. Nor do I think that anyone who has raised questions about this process has ill intentions. I am beginning to think that perhaps the “way things have always been done” has had a deeper impact on our discussions at Rep Council than I expected. I’ll return to that in a moment, but first I want to share what I recall from Rep Council.
<o:p> </o:p>

• Back in April/late March, as part of the announcements portion of a Rep Council meeting, APSCUF-KU President Mike Gambone told the entire Rep Council that he was approached by the Board of Trustees with concerns they had about developments on our campus. In particular, he shared that they asked him to come to a special meeting and provide them with an evaluation of President Cevallos’s job performance. While we were not given copies of the document Gambone gave to the Board of Trustees (in part because he did not want to raise this issue publicly if there was an opportunity for positive change by working through the Trustees). Gambone did say, however, that one of the key things he stated explicitly in the document was that several issues need to be resolved or there would be an increasing push toward a vote of no confidence.
• I do remember, as some of the previous emails on this subject contend, that the issue of no confidence was brought up as part of other discussions during Rep Council.
• During strike preparations (and in our General Membership meeting over the summer) some members raised the issue of no confidence again and Gambone explicitly said that that will be an issue we may have to consider if we do not see progress.
• Over the summer, when the administration failed to call meetings of the ELC Task Force to generate solutions regarding the long-term stability of the ELC, we ran into the same pattern of inaction. Again, the issue of no confidence was raised.
• Finally (and this is by no means a complete list) Rep Council passed (with, if I remember correctly, one “no” vote) on October 11, 2007 a resolution on the ELC that explicitly called for accountability on the part of President Cevallos. You can see the full resolution here.

<o:p></o:p>So, when I say I can’t square the different “rememberings” about whether or not Rep Council members were informed about the question of no confidence in the president, I am not simply playing games. But, nonetheless, I do believe some members of Rep Council when they say do not see the above list as meaning the same thing as I do. So, what does one do with this? Well, again, it would be easy to dismiss different “rememberings” and engage in finger pointing. But, c’mon, who really has any interest in that. So, I want to share what I think may have contributed to these differences.

<o:p></o:p>There was a time when the word did not matter—
or at least, was not of serious consequence

<o:p></o:p>One of the things that I noticed early in my career here is that many faculty did not put a whole lot of stock in the words of APSCUF-KU leadership or the Administration. I remember listening to the protestations of previous members of APSCUF-KU Exec and hearing colleagues say “they always say that and still nothing happens.” Or, the administration would say it was invested in program A or policy B and colleagues would say “I’ll believe it when I see it.” In other words, I heard a lot of distrust or dismissal of people’s words—ironic for an academic institution in which words are supposed to mean. And if people do not believe in what other people say—if they cannot trust their words—then it makes sense that claims, statements, and arguments would be dismissed or not seen as worthy of notice. It’s actually almost a cliché representation of academics and academic discourse—that words have no connection to actual practices, that words are only used for posturing or making idle threats. Have you ever read the book Straight Man, by Richard Russo? A colleague of mine gave it to me my first year here and told me it should be “required reading” for all new faculty members at Kutztown. As each year passes, I am more and more aware of how true that book rings.

In any case, I am beginning to think that the culture of words-without-meaning may have had a part in some members of Rep Council not reading our words as amounting to very much. That is, I can imagine that if I had been at Kutztown for 20 years and I had gotten used to not believing words, on what grounds would I believe Gambone, or me, or APSCUF-KU Exec? It’s not as if the culture of words-without-meaning is gone after all. I remember in the Fall of 2006 when Dean Hanna came to our department meeting and told us all that once the Academic Forum went on-line in the Spring 2007, one of the larger classrooms in Lytle would be taken off line and converted into office space. Now, no one in our department was thrilled with the Academic Forum, but there was hope that at least we would have offices for new faculty. In August 2007, just a couple of weeks before the beginning of the semester, the Forum was on-line, but we did not have any converted office space. Instead, I came to campus to find that our copy room was being dismantled and half of the History department’s seminar room was being taken over in a last ditch effort to provide faculty with offices. And it was faculty and staff members who were doing that work. Again, none of this is new. At the LAS College opening day meeting, I raised this very issue to Hanna. I asked, in effect, “what happened?” He said that it would have been irresponsible for him as a manager to invest money in converting office space when Lytle will be torn down. “When will it be torn down, I asked?” Seven years.

I remember feeling kind of stupid at that point. I asked myself, “why did I actually believe his words in the fall of 2006?” Colleagues chimed in: “it’s par for the course.” In effect, it was a pedagogical moment. That is, I was being taught not to believe words. I was being instructed in the literacy of a culture of words-without-meaning. I can imagine that after a while, I would get worn down. I would accept despair. I would come to the conclusion, “that’s just the way things are.” But that would have significant, additional consequences. I would stop believing what people say. I would have to determine that what other faculty members and administrators said had no significance in real life. That’s a dangerous path—especially for someone like me who teaches writing and how to do things with words.

Having words

Something that I think all of us on the current APSCUF-KU Exec have tried to do is to make good on our words. I can remember in the past, sitting though Rep Council meetings when the former president would report on Meet and Discuss. He would tell us that APSCUF-KU demanded a resolution to X or additional information on Y. The administration would consistently reply “we’ll get back to you.” But they never did. The next Meet and Discuss report was like watching a re-run of the previous report. “We’ll get back to you.” But no one seemed to really expect that we would actually get an answer. And there was no consequence. It was like a ritual dance that the actors performed for the sake of ceremony. When Gambone became president and Ken Ehrensal took over Meet and Discuss, they had to contend with this ritual. Gambone’s answer was to give the administration time lines. Instead of “we’ll get back to you” meeting with a nod, it was met with a deadline: If you do not get back to us by next Meet and Discuss, we will file a policy grievance. Management called what it thought was a bluff. The grievance was filed. In other words, words meant something again. For over a year the pattern repeated, until finally (maybe) it started to become clear that words would continue to mean something in that context. And when words have meaning, we can actually start talking about trust again.

So, to bring this back to the point, I think I can understand why the arguments, information, warnings, suggestions about no confidence that I’ve listed above may not have meant the same thing to some people as they meant to me. I can also understand why Rep Council members would not lend credence to other members call for a no confidence vote. After all, in a context where words were divorced from practice and action, there would be no reason to care or connect the dots between statement A and statement B.

Perhaps we have an opportunity here to reclaim the word. To trust that we say what we mean and mean what we say. And, further, that we will follow up on our words with practice. Frankly, that’s what I saw us doing on APSCUF-KU Exec. But we were cautious as well. We did not recommend to Rep Council that a vote of no confidence be taken. We raised the issue publicly as a point of discussion. Faculty members need ample time to consider this issue. Faculty members need time to consider the supporting documents on our local website http://www.apscuf.org/kutztown and on the blog http://cevallosnoconfidence.blogspot.com. Department Representatives need to have time to talk to members of their department to get their input. When Department Reps come to Rep Council on February 14^th, they will have had the benefit of all this discussion and can represent their departments well. Then Rep Council will decide what to do. Is a vote of no confidence in President Cevallos a possibility? Yes. But that is only one possibility. This discussion has to happen in the open—not just in hallways and closed offices—but openly. We are, after all, thinking through the future of our university.

An Election Year

<o:p></o:p>I also know that there are some faculty members who are not happy with the current APSCUF-KU Exec leadership. I take that as a given. It seems to me that cultural and structural change is not easy. Not everyone will be happy with the direction of change. But I want to remind everyone one of this: APSCUF-KU elections will be held this spring. Up for election are President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer. In addition, three Delegate seats are up for election: my seat, Paul Quinn’s seat, and Kristin Bremer’s seat. If you are not happy with the current leadership, run for a position. Put together a slate of candidates for that matter. I think that would be incredibly healthy for the future of this union. I would further suggest that we could have a public debate leading up to elections. That kind of involvement in our local would be incredible.

When election time comes around, I will make my case. I will respond to any questions people have. I will offer my services to the union and the university once again. Unless something unforeseen happens, I will run again. You have my word.

I’ve been looking over my old blogging home and have been taking an inventory of what to bring to this place. I just got going on my blogger site…or, I finally started writing more consistently. This past year was enough to get me to take stock and re-prioritize so much about my relationship to my job and to what is important. This place can have a way of dragging you into the morass of endless bureaucratic exercises that give illusion of motion. You think you are getting somewhere, but it’s more like you’re sitting in a car in one of those old Hollywood movies that projected a moving road behind the car.

But of late things have been better insofar as I am not stressed beyond belief and I am looking for reconnection among my union work, my teaching, and my research. By necessity, for sure, but there are very interesting openings. In our recent work to open a discussion of a no confidence vote in the President of Kutztown, there have been interesting email exchanges among faculty that return me to the work Rachel and I did on our book–in particular, the role of despair in neoliberal discourse. It’s like living the concepts. I’ll have a lot more to say about that over the next several weeks.

But rather than restate, I’m going to paste in another piece from the previous incarnation of Cooking with Dionysus. A recipe of sorts:

Recipe #1: Pressure Cooking

It’s been a while since I’ve talked with my pal Dionysis. I think he decided to sit back and watch for a while. Perhaps waiting to be called or spending some time experimenting with new recipes, updating older ones. What is clear to me is that my own cooking has become rather, well, one dimensional (to call my old acquaintance Marcuse to mind). I’ve spent much too much time pressure cooking than is good for any individual.

I’ve been calling D. more often lately asking him to refresh my memory about the integration of labor, love, joy, and play. He told me that the reason Jack Nicholson went crazy in The Shining was that he had the wrong binary…or better that he couldn’t get out of the false binary of work/play…” all work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.” But D. said that Johnny could have posed the question differently. He could have said where is the play in my work and work in my play? What is it about “this place” that frames my work one-dimensionally? There must be room for play…or better, play is already there even if unacknowledged. He then reminded me of how long it’s been since I called him (a wide grin had he).

So, I’ve been looking over some of my recipes lately to rethink them. To recall to mind the principles of slow food and slow cooking. After all, slow food is more than cooking slowly. It speaks to an ethic, a mood, a gathering of others. It embodies the spirit of D. and is as kairotic as Gorgias’s Encomium. So with that all in mind, I’m returning and turning over and around some of the recipes I’ve been using of late.

Pressure Cooking: Mechanics of an Institution

I found it interesting to learn that in 1679 a French physicist by the name of Denis Papin invented an early version of the pressure cooker and called it a “steam digester.” I am not sure if Papin considered himself ironic or a fluent user of metaphors, but find myself wondering about his conditions of work, or whether he had people to talk to that understood what he was doing. We do, after all, have Papin in part to thank for the piston and cylinder engine–even if he was not the one who followed through to create the worlds first steam engine.

To digest steam. Such an interesting choice of words. Is that possible? And such a bodily term such as digestion. Can we digest steam? If we are “steamed” does that speak to an inability to digest? Or, perhaps, the HOPE that we might be able to digest steam as opposed to venting it, blowing it off, or simply remaining steamed. But even Papin’s little machine didn’t “digest” the steam…it “released” it. Actually, it seems that early attempts to contain steam and “digest it” were not all that successful. The early experiments often ended with the vessel exploding. Papin had to install a valve that “released steam” to prevent an explosion. Yet he still called it a digester. Interesting.

Our current pressure cookers, of course, have valves. There are plenty of opportunities to “release steam” in a socially acceptable manner and to contain the steam that persists in behaving badly. Sometimes we simply explain the ways things have been done to the steam. Sometimes we tell the steam that it has no choice but to adapt to the rules of the container and exit only through the pre-designed valve. Other times we tell the steam it’s being unrealistic if it thinks it can redesign the container from within while lamenting the fact that there is no outside of the container (where does the valve go, then, I ask?). But enough about steam. I am, after all, here to write about cookery.

Pressure cooking is not slow, after all. It privileges speed, convenience, and, yes, pressure. I made a stew tonight. Goulash stew, actually. And it was messy. And it was slow. Slow cooked. And it tasted good. It reminded me that pressure cooking privileges condensed time. And everything that goes into it is put under pressure, hurried up, and packed into that container changing boiling points, altering human atmospheres. I don’t aspire to live on Mercury, after all. Human cooking. That’s what I’m after.

I think I am going to conjure up Paulo and share a human dish with him.

First things first.  It sucks that I had to reboot this entire WordPress project.  But now I can say a few things:

Lessons Learned:

• Backup.  Backup again.
• Read book first or, at the very least, have book present during experimentation
• WordPress for Dummies is worth every penny
• It was smart to feed these posts into facebook so I can repost them now

There’s actually more lessons about design too, but I’ll let those go for now.

In the meantime I am going to start reposting posts.  For the full pre-WordPress archive (I know you’re just dying to read everything I wrote)  you can go to my old blogger site here.