State of The University: You didn't read this here, and I have no idea who these people are.

f@ck this program.

What's your complaint? That the first and only administrative response to your conference proposal showed an exclusive interest in practical money matters" - "Sure, sure; but who's going to pay for this?"

basically, yeah. the tepid response i received is representative of the program as whole. i thought that even if no one from the program were to be accepted (understanding that acceptance would be a long shot) it would be good practice for a program whose students lack motivation and any idea of the applicability of their degrees. guess i was barking up the wrong tree when i thought it would be good to try to mobilize students for such an effort.

feels like everyone is languishing. no one in this program, at least of the first year students, does anything other than second guess whether they should have entered the program in the first place. i thought that if we were to focus on creating a conference panel it would not only help morale, by giving everyone a focus, but also increase the visibility of the department - something which the administrators seem to value (as only administrators can) above actual academic pursuits. that response has been so tepid is emblematic of everyone's degree of dedication to the program.

i'm bitching more than i should and i knew all of this going into it. but, damn, it's frustrating. i'm sick of devoting all of my class time to all of these incredibly soft critiques and pop philosophy, and being so loaded down with homework that I don't have time to pursue anything genuinely interesting.

perhaps this is what grad school is all about.

Pretty much. At least 90% of the time. But, hell, I've never been to a real grad school. So how would I really know? You want to the straight dope, go ask Professor P.S.

p.s.

Your remarks here remind me of a conversation I just had with an undergrad in Pre-Med/Exercise and Sports Science. I stayed after class with her for an hour and showed her all the amazing research that has been done, is continues to be done, on duration, instantaneity, bodily motion, proto-cinema and the making of the subject of modern science (Muybridge, Marey, Bachelard, Merleau-Ponty, etc). She was thoroughly bewildered, not to mention frustrated, that: her own department offers absolutely no instruction in these areas, none of the students in her field seem remotely curious about their discipline, none of the other students in our writing class come to me for academic direction. I told her quite frankly, get used to it and get over it. From here on in, it will be a long, lonely march. But, thank God, we're not always entirely alone. Notice, for example, for all that our friendship entails almost continuous talk of alcohol, how little you and I actually drink when we're together. Why? Because we're too busy working the mind instead of the bottle. Isn't that what real intellectual friendship is all about?

p.p.s.

But know what I really think?

That irrespective of whether this school's program is hot or cold shit, you are in it and need to make the best of it - and not in any negative or resigned sense. You can make the most of the time you have to read, to write, to think - even if a great portion of that think involves wondering why things are still so barbaric here.

Yours is a new field, a new science still in the process of freeing itself from its pre-critical stage, its prehistory It can be a very challenging and frustrating time to be in your field, but it can also be a very exciting one. You, even as a rookie, are doing the necessary ground work so that other will be able build the disciplinary edifice. That's your job right now, isn't it?: to work out your field's equivalent to Marx's Grundrisse. Write up a conference proposal about this very topic and, as part of a panel or solo, go to Paris. I hear they got plenty of French intellectuals over there.

"Aeons"