filthy lucre

[Diana York Blaine]

When I said check out the job market for humanities majors I didn't mean
to suggest that I was unemployed, as many of you seem to have assumed.  I
in fact beat out some 400 other poor slobs last year for a pretty good
tenure-track job right out of grad. school. (You'll be proud to know my
on-campus interview job talk was on none other than our Tom). I was
reacting to the suggestion that somehow we in academia are Different.  In
fact it sounds like we have had the exact same experiences, including
Firesign Theater, Python, Elvis (the Brit), etc.  But I was also hoping to
point out the obvious fact that no feminist-friendly information comes
through the media, and unless you have actually studied the primary
sources you may assume you know what it is. I did. I was wrong.  And
when I teach Feminist Lit and Theory this  Fall, I certainly won't say
"don't worry, there's no books in this course, we're just going
to talk about what we think feminism is, what we already know about it,
because it's just a social phenomenon."  I don't fault any of us for our
racist, sexist, homophobic, classist values, because we came by them
honest, in a racist, sexist, homophobic, classist country.  But it's also
the land of the free, and I will assert one more time my right to work
towards making that actually mean something.  I think Pynchon gets it and
I think he expects his books to make us ask questions about our culture.
Diana
p.s. did anyone else get a sad, weird little message from
Jules?  I'm kind of worried about him.