Seeing Red

After a busy week that involved an incredible conference on Penn's campus and a lovely weekend filled with local food and good friends (I hosted a local/sustainable potluck this past Saturday and the range of dishes was fantastic!), I awoke to an opinion piece in the the New York Times that makes my blood boil and heart sink. Stanley Fish is, at best, polemical, but really he is curmudgeonly and pig-headed. Last summer he used his status as "public intellectual" to childishly rant about the "inconvenience" of eating organic, recycling and being green. In this previous post, Fish writes, "I resist and resent the demands made on me by environmental imperatives. I don’t want to save the planet. I just want to inhabit it as comfortably as possible for as long as I have." He goes on to whine about toilet paper, gloat over a hidden stock of paper napkins, bemoan the ugliness and dim-lighting of "environmentally approved lightbulbs" and then takes a stab at organic and humanely raised meat.

Meanwhile, by the weak light shed by the virtuous bulbs, I am eating local meat — meat from cows organically raised and humanely slaughtered (what a phrase!). It is of course expensive, but what is worse, it tastes bad. That is, it tastes like real meat, gamy and lean, rather than like the processed, marbled, frozen, supermarket stuff I had grown up on. I’m sure it is a better quality, and that buying it sustains the local community and strikes a blow against agrabusiness, but I just don’t like it. And since I hate vegetables, becoming a vegetarian is not an option.

These opinion pieces supposedly allow for reader responses and commentary. However, they are monitored and not all comments are allowed. Both Paula from Civil Eats and I submitted comments that were rejected. Admittedly, my response was heated, but I had a feeling it would be rejected (Paula's already had been), and I didn't want to tailor my reaction to suit the comment-moderator's conservative filter. Here is my unpublished comment:

Dr. Fish,

I'm afraid your latest blog entry has seriously ruffled me. It angers and saddens me actually. I feel it speaks very directly to "tree-loving rustic wackies who don’t like to have any fun" (with a nod to comment 11), like me. I'm just a "nut-case" environmentalist (ref. comment 4), but ... come on! You write yourself into a disappointing stereotype of western (American) [wo]man: selfish, closed-minded, short-sighted and resistant to change! I am very concerned about the environment and conscientious in my own private life, though I don't generally preach my views and force change on others. I'm certainly a bad environmentalist for this, but I do honestly believe in making an impact on a small scale and inspiring change through example. Outspoken, "popular", read figures who laud their own ignorance and laziness and who clearly reach an audience of like-minded or on-the-fence readers really make me want to grab a jar of my homemade vinegar (made with local honey and local plums -- thank you http://alucidspoonful.blogspot.com/) and toss it into the eyes of those blinded by their own self-importance.

I find no inconvenience in maintaining a low carbon footprint. A true gastronome, I rejoice in my (vegetarian) meals which consist mainly of local and organic ingredients. Living an environmentally conscious life has in no way affected my studies (I am graduate student of literature at UPenn), nor has it cramped my style.

I urge you to use your well-trained mind to read your actions and your here voiced opinions and consider whether or not you want to stand behind a statement which encourages laziness, recklessness and human-elitism.

-- Melanie, a tree loving rustic wacko who doesn't have any fun in Philadelphia

I should mention that some of the comments that were published were nearly as bad as Fish! "Tree-loving rustic wackies who don’t like to have any fun" is a direct quote from a comment, as is the "nut-case" environmentalist.

Moving on to today's opinion piece, Stanley Fish returned to familiar grounds and decided to defend his support of the professionalization of academics and his closed-minded belief that academics should not mix politics and the classroom. Academic freedom, according to Fish, does not extend beyond the wall's of the academy, and a scholar, therefore, should not apply his expertise to the greater questions that trouble the world at large.

There is no denying that the academy is becoming more and more professionalized. Fish himself sums up pretty well the extent to which universities have been affected by neoliberalism:

Faced with this situation universities have responded by (1) raising tuition, in effect passing the burden of costs to the students who now become consumers and debt-holders rather than beneficiaries of enlightenment (2) entering into research partnerships with industry and thus courting the danger of turning the pursuit of truth into the pursuit of profits and (3) hiring a larger and larger number of short-term, part-time adjuncts who as members of a transient and disposable workforce are in no position to challenge the university’s practices or agitate for an academy more committed to the realization of democratic rather than monetary goals. In short, universities have embraced neoliberalism.

At an attempt to be "objective," Fish neither claims to support nor reject this occurence. I, however, am not being objective and will say that this embracing of neoliberalism both depresses me and makes me want to jump up and start a revolution. In their new status as "consumers and debt-holders," students are becoming victimized by higher education. I can personally attest to the burden of excessive student loan debt. Being a graduate student who will eventually enter the job "market" (I find that the farmer's market is starting to be the only kind of market I can stomach) in order to find a position as a professor, the trend to hire more adjuncts and decrease full-time tenured positions is alarming and disgusting. With the commodification of education, instructors are being exploited as cheap labor, hired to "educate" a bunch of kids who are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars.

Again, Fish defines academic freedom to exist only within a given university. Academics should publish in their field and not look to attract controversy. He sums up his opinion on this matter and the counterargument as follows:

By defining academic freedom narrowly, as a concept tied to a guild and responsive only to its interests, I am said to ignore the responsibility academics have to freedom everywhere, not only in the classroom or in the research library but in the society at large and indeed in the entire world. In the view of the critics of the neoliberal university, a limiting definition of academic freedom forfeits the good that academics, highly trained and articulate as they are, might do if they took a stand against injustice and unfreedom wherever they are found.

I, honestly, want nothing to do with an academy that looks like Fish's model. I believe that my training in close reading, criticism and sensitivity to detail and nuance should be applied to the current state of affairs. I hope to train students to learn how to take the skills they have learned in analysing literature and use them to better understand the world they live in. The ability to think critically and to learn to be reflective and thoughtful should not be stifled by greed and professonalization.

Enough about Stanley Fish. His caustic opinion piece turned my verdant thoughts red, and I had to let off some steam. I have a few days off from classes this week. I will be doing a considerable amount of work, but hopefully I will manage to put up a few posts concerning my usual food and environmental concerns.

On being an *academic* environmentalist gastronome...

I am noticing a trend. Perhaps you have noticed too? I am not keeping up with my blog very well. There was a moment when I was posting multiple times a week. This is no longer the case. I had thought that I would have much more time to devote to my blog this semester, because I am not teaching. I am not teaching, but I am taking reading-intensive seminars and "preparing" for my first comprehensive exam. Of course, up until this point, "preparation" has consisted mainly of writing lists and finding room on my bookshelves for the books I have commandeered from the library. I continue to cook and go to the farmer's market and enjoy in general my eco- and local food resources, but I just do not seem to manage to sit down and write about it all that often.
This is where the "academic" enters the title of this post. You clever readers might have already noted that this title plays with the subtitle of the blog: "Reflections of an Ecovore - or - On Being an Environmentalist Gastronome." Up until now I might occasionally refer to my studies (or cats), but I mainly wanted to focus on ecofood musings. My being a graduate student has thus far played a role in that I eat as well and as environmentally in tune as I do despite living off of a modest stipend (and don't forget my student loan debt!). However, as my studies continue to impede on my blogging time, I thought I might as well share a little bit about what I do. I recently applied for a "Graduate Certificate in the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality," and for this application I needed to submit a brief statement about my research. Paula graciously edited this statement and I was accepted. This was the first time I tried to sum up my research coherently and attempted to project a general idea of what a future dissertation might possibly look like. It's deliciously vague, and yet hits upon the key points of my interests. I though I'd share this with you (leaving out the final bit where I explain why the certificate and the Women's Studies program will play such a central role in my work). When I am not being an ecovore, this is what I do. Or actually -- I do both at the same time.

I am a second year doctoral student in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. My work focuses on the intersection of epistolarity, spatiality and gender in narratives. Specifically, I study the space created by a letter, embedded in a fictional text, and consider the implications of this space particularly as it pertains to gender. Most recently I considered this space as gender neutral when investigating the function of letters in Dorothea Veit Schlegel’s Romantic novel Florentin (1801). The lack of gender within the epistolary space allowed women to shed the restrictions of gendered stereotypes and expectations when picking up the pen (assuming a phallus?) and allowed them to gain authority. Men too would be able to assume a voice outside of the limitations of their gender as it was understood at the time (the pen/phallus then acting as key and not gendering tool). I continue to work on an article about missives in Arthur Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else (1924) and the effect these have on the development of the plot and more specifically the role they play in Else’s demise. I am currently in the stage of establishing a theoretical foundation in epistolarity and in gender. Tentatively, in my dissertation I hope to establish a gendered theory of the letter as it is portrayed in 20th century German and Austrian fictional narratives.

If you come here for seasonal and eco recipes along with pictures of food, these will continue to appear. I offer a picture of a rather delightful winter vegetable soup (turned purple by red cabbage) as a concession prize. You can find the recipe at Farm to Philly.

Fall Bounty and a Challenge

Though I am barely a week into my blogging career, I thought I would attempt the challenge of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I actually view writing as a weakness of mine. I love to read and think, reflect and comment, but when it comes to sitting down to write I often feel intimidated or become somewhat frozen. This is problematic. A large portion of my chosen career involves writing. Indeed, I am a "writer" (or I should be). A very smart someone commended me for writing a blog and praised the value of regular writing and of attempting different kinds of writing (i.e. not merely academic writing, which can become overly jargonistic and stiff fast). I don't actually think that my academic writing fits that bill; it probably could do with a bit more jargon. Regardless, I want to be a writer and I want to limber up my fingers and get them used to regularly typing acceptable prose. Admittedly, there are many things about which I should be writing: Gershom Scholem's theory of silence, the collecting eye as flâneur, the silent female voice in Dorothea Schlegel's Lucinde, teaching methods, and then there's this article I meant to write this past summer about letters in Fräulein Else. Those things will get written too. A month of daily blogging will hopefully get me ready for the intense academic writing that will begin in December (maybe even late November). The posts will not always be long. There will not always be pictures. I hope, however, that at least one of thirty posts this month will bear some meaning for you.
The first day of November brought mild temperatures and sunshine (for most of the day) to Philadelphia. My usual stroll to the Saturday farmer's market in Clark Park made me feel both relaxed and excited to be outside on such a perfect fall day. The first tree to really turn in the park this year lies magically in the center of the park. Someone described it to me as a jewel. The real jewel today, however, was my CSA share. I praised the great bargain of this share before, but today's bounty really outdid itself!
There were the usual dozen eggs, two granolas, a local cheese (this week baby swiss!), and then so many delicious fall vegetables and apples: Twelve apples in total, a stalk of brussel sprouts, eight sweet potatoes of varying sizes, butternut squash, eight tomatoes, five small onions, two turnips, a head of brocolli and two heads of romanesco brocolli.
Here is Firlefanz investigating this alien brocolli:
All of these local, fresh, organic goodies costs only $20. Half of the share goes to Elisha (so $10 a piece). I can't get over what a great deal this is. It is possible to eat well, support local small farms and be kind to the environment without spending an arm and a leg. In addition to the share I bought a bag of red beans and two quarts of apple cider. Looks like I have a week's worth of fine dining ahead of me.
I had great hopes for a lovely vegetable meal tonight. But playing with my vegetables will have to happen at a later date, because something terrifying scurried into my life this evening and I have lost my appetite. I guess that leaves me with blog fodder for another day.