Retirement and Entrepreneurship in Mexico

 

Reblogged from the New York Times:

WHEN Patrice Wynne shuttered her independent bookstore, Gaia, in Berkeley, Calif., and retired, she knew three things. She wanted to move to a place where she could slow down the tempo of her life, and it was cheaper to live, but where she could continue to work in some fashion.

“I promised myself — I’m not going to slip into going to cocktail parties and playing tennis,” Ms. Wynne, 61, said. “I wanted engagement.”

And that’s what she got. Three years ago, along a cobblestone street in the center of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, she opened Abrazos, a 650-square-foot retail shop selling colorful Mexican-themed fabric aprons, kitchen and cooking accessories, handbags and clothing, all sewn by a dozen local seamstresses.

 Read the rest of this article on the New York Times.

Pre-order Heavy Feather Review 2.2

Reblogged from Laura Ellen Scott:

Heavy Feather Review just opened up pre-orders for their next volume.I have a long, 16 part story in the issue called "A Texas," which is about dead adult siblings who have moved into their family's vacation cottage in Aransas Bay. A section of "A Texas" called "Drag" appeared in Pank last November.

Here's the HFR announcement, along with news that they will be moving to a quarterly format that will feature a chapbook contest for each go 'round.

Read more… 52 more words

Don’t wait to start your life

Story A Day (x 4): The Ketchup Edition

Reblogged from Art & Literature:

Back when I was in elementary school in Richlands, NC, our teacher would regularly have a "Catch-Up" Day. I was always confused when there were no French fries.

In addition to this being the Ketchup Edition of my Story A Day In May plan, it's also the Laura Ellen Scott Edition, since everything here relates to her in one way or another.

Read more… 295 more words

What if people told European history like they told Native American history?

Reblogged from An Indigenous History of North America:

The first immigrants to Europe arrived thousands of years ago from central Asia. Most pre-contact Europeans lived together in small villages. Because the continent was very crowded, their lives were ruled by strict hierarchies within the family and outside it to control resources. Europe was highly multi-ethnic, and most tribes were ruled by hereditary leaders who commanded the majority "commoners." These groups were engaged in near constant warfare.

Read more… 516 more words

GMU English Major’s Tumblr “Shit First Drafts” Wins a Sweet Book Deal

English major Paul Laudiero

Re blogged from FairfaxTimes.com

While other English majors might be wondering about life after college, soon-to-be GMU graduate Paul Laudiero, 22, has a book deal under his belt and big dreams.

In February, Laudiero had an idea for a blog: “Shit Rough Drafts,” which fictionally re-creates literary icons’ first attempts at classics.

“I write every day for a couple hours. Something every writer should learn early, unless they’re delusional, is your writing is shit. It’s shit for at least 10 years,” Laudiero said, “I started thinking about [F. Scott Fitzgerald’s] The Great Gatsby,’ which was being promoted–the movie—everywhere. I was thinking [Fitzgerald] must have had a lot of shit drafts, like ‘The Good Gatsby,’ ‘The Alright Gatsby,’”

Laudiero posted his Gatsby goof as his first “Shit Rough Drafts” Tumblr entry and, “It took off,” he said. “That’s the thing about Tumblr. If you have a lot of funny material it will be seen.”

In February, Laudiero condensed 10 years of “shit writing” into a month.

“The Huffington Post did an article on [my] Tumblr a week after I started it,” Laudiero said. Two weeks after that, through a friend of a friend, Laudiero had a book agent, then he won The Great Tumblr Book Search contest, a collaboration between Chronicle Books and Tumblr for which Laudiero received a $200 prize in free Chronicle Books. The contest received 175 book pitches. Laudiero took the money, but gave Chronicle Books his agent’s name. The result: Laudiero landed his first book deal.

Read the rest of this article on FairfaxTimes.com.

LOC-GMU Field School 2013: Arlington National Cemetery

The Field School for Cultural Documentation, a collaboration between George Mason University and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is set to begin on May 20.   For the last three weeks I have been prepping students who have applied for the course, in part to let them know my expectations (this is not a typical summer course) and to do preliminary field work at the cemetery to better prepare myself and the students for their whirlwind ethnographic experience.

The purpose of the course is to document the occupational culture of the cemetery using ethnography and oral history methods. The materials the students and I collect will be archived at the Library of Congress as part of the Veterans History Project.  This the first time in the history of Arlington National Cemetery that there has been a systematic documentation of workplace culture.

So far I’ve found working with the cemetery personnel extremely satisfying.  There is a clear chain of command (which I expected) and a strong commitment to this collaborative effort.

The students will present their preliminary research findings in the theatre of the Women in Military Service for American Memorial on Wednesday June 19, 2013 at 2 PM.  The event will be free and open to the public.

Teaching Ethnography: Writing the Final Product

Last Thursday was the last day of class for the Writing Ethnography group.  For the last month we’ve been workshopping selections from their final projects in class and I’ve been meeting one-on-one with students to talk about their writing and how to best shape their final products.  Most students will hand in a 15-20 page ethnographic account; some will submit projects that are much longer.

I teach ethnographic methods every semester.  This is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to teach ethnography in the context of a writing course.  Certainly writing is always at the center of the work I do as a folklorist; the attention to narrative structure is a hallmark of good folkloristic work.  What I found extremely satisfying about the project is how well the ethnographic process integrated with the writing process.  Just as the students were getting their stride in their fieldwork, they were also finding their authorial voices in the construction of their ethnographic projects.

You may recall that I blogged about a student a few weeks ago–a student who to date has not handed in a single draft.  Well, he’s still at it; he came by my office with a draft of this final project.  It turns out he has been writing and drafting, at least since he came back to class.  His was a remarkable piece of work: ethnographically thick and well supported by secondary sources.

Tomorrow the final portfolios come in and I will be buried in what I expect will be the most engaging undergraduate essays.  My only regret is that this class is not required for all students in folklore and anthropology.  Teaching intensive writing along with ethnography could do so much for the field.

I love this job.

Think like an Administrator–just for a minute

How many times have you heard a faculty colleague comment that becoming an administrator is moving to the “dark side”?  It’s true, faculty and administrators often think differently, but why is that?  And what are the priorities one has to make as an administrator?  The article excerpted from Inside Higher Ed points the key differences.

When I moved into my first faculty position after earning my Ph.D., I had been an academic administrator for several years — and had been an administrator some years before, too. Moving into the “faculty mindset” wasn’t hard for me at first. I was expected to focus on my teaching and research, asked to commit to service when it was needed, and was otherwise free to go about my business as I saw fit.

It didn’t take long, however, for me to start to chafe at the disconnection: I had very little sense of what was going on in the wider university that didn’t directly impact my work or wasn’t in the student newspaper. I was used to knowing more, being part of the larger project of education on campus. That’s a central part of why I sought administrative work after only a short time in a purely faculty role. It was also the moment when I realized that there really is an administrative mindset that comes with changing roles.

So, just how do administrators think differently than faculty?  In several key ways that must be clear to anyone considering a move from one side of the line to the other in academe.  And trust me, it’s a clear line.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2013/04/12/essay-what-its-faculty-member-become-administrator#ixzz2QTefZG14
Inside Higher Ed

Mean Professors

I found this today on Facebook.  I think if you’ve taught for any length of time you can understand why the professor did what he did.  I’m not excusing it or agreeing with it, but I do understand it.

Ok, let’s get serious here. A popular professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business replied to a student’s email in a way that is party jerkface but mostly, part sage life advice. Deadspin reports that a student walked into the 1st day of class an hour late and the professor told her to leave & come back to the next class. In the comments section, most people were surprised to find themselves siding with the professor, citing topics like the rudeness of interrupting 80 people who pay full tuition to the foolishness of  “shopping” 3 classes in the same time slot. The professor actually XXXX’d out the student’s name and emailed it to all of his students! See below.. what’s your take on this?

The rest of the article (including the letter from the student and the professor’s response) are found here.