Is this ethical or not?

Sorry, no links again. You may remember that I have a student assistant for the summer. She is very bright, but I still have some difficulties finding tasks for her to do.  Supposedly, she is helping me with my research. Of course, at a point, my teaching and my research intersect. That will happen next Fall, with the course on Latin American crime fiction in translation I will be teaching (the course is not strictly about crime fiction, but it comes close). 

According to a few professors outside my department that have had my assistant in their classes, she is an outstanding writer. I've heard several comments praising her essays' elegant style. So I thought that one task I could assign her is to write 3-4 pages summaries on certain topics, to give my students as handouts next semester. Of course, she would get the credit for writing them, and I would go over the summaries to make sure they are accurate.

I am not worried whether it's ethical to ask her to work on material for one of my classes. They are useful for my research and, even better, it's a topic she is interested in. My only concern is that she is enrolled in my course next semester. Do you think it's ethical to ask her to produce material for a course she'll be a student in? Am I giving her an unfair advantage over the rest of the students in the course? What's your take, dear reader?

Thank you Chief Justice Roberts - random thoughts on SCOTUS ruling

Sorry, there will be no links because I'm on my IPod. I haven't been blogging lately because I have a major ADHD attack, so I've tried to concentrate on my work as much as possible. Today, however, I took the day off to read as much as possible about the SCOTUS ruling. Some thoughts:

- I am very happy. It needs to be said, because I've read so-called liberals saying it should have been better if the law had been repealed. In this argument, we would then have the opportunity to pass universal health care. Yeah, right...that would have happened. Please...Deeply flawed as it is, just the no lifetime limits on coverage makes it worth it. And I am happy for my 24 year-old student with lupus that will have coverage for at least 2 more years.

-Did any political pundit guessed the outcome correctly? I am as stunned as everybody by Chief Justice Roberts position, but I can only thank him for acting like a human being. And today I also realized he was on the majority in the ruling a few days ago that basically repealed Arizona's SB 1070. Talking about the ruling, if you have time, read the dissenting opinion authored by Scalia. Isn't it scary? It really sounds like he doesn't care about keeping the forms any longer.

-Mitt Romney never misses an opportunity to show what a pathetic excuse for a politician he is. And Senator Rand Paul (KY): if the SCOTUS ruled that the law was constitutional, isn't it constitutional by definition?

-Daily Kos has the best collection of tweets regarding the decission.

- To the two Republican Facebook acquaintances that today posted that the ruling has turned the US into a socialist country, and therefore you want to move to Canada. Do you know they have universal health care AND gay marriage there?

-Reading conservatives pundits go crazy over Roberts has made my afternoon really funny.

- On a last note, I don't pretend that upholding the law means that health care will radically change in this country. I do think, though, that the opposite ruling would have been a disaster and nobody would have dare approach the issue for at least a decade. Now, maybe the law can be improved. I said maybe, which is better than not in the next decade or so.

New knowledge and random thoughts after a week of grading

As you all know, this is how I spent last week. The prompt for the long essay was "What is the impact of new technologies in art?". They had to draw from two written sources and an audio source to write the essay. Essays varied greatly in quality. However, I found some gems, and also got quite depressed for certain assertions that appeared quite often. Here is a sample of statements that was obviously the student's personal opinion, and that seemed shared by a majority:

- With all the technology, there is no need to go to a museum and walk throughout it, since you can see and enjoy all the art at home, on your computer.

- There is no need to open a book for a school project anymore, since I can find everything on Google.

- Technology has made things easier for all of us, since we don't need to travel to foreign countries to see what's there. We can look it up online.

- I don't understand how my parents went through college if there was no Wikipedia during their time (I swear, I read this at least 3 times a day).

To cheer you up a little bit, here is an example of random gems I found throughout the essays, that had me smiling:

- Before the 1970s, everything you wrote had to be handwritten (I guess this student never heard of typewriters)

-In order to avoid going to museums, Spaniards decided to create a social networking website called Facebook, so they could share Spanish culture with the rest of the world

- Computers are a tool invented by human beings that has been powerful for centuries.

- Art has existed for millions of years, since there were human beings on Earth. In fact, before human beings populated the Earth, animals were already doing art.

And with that, I'll leave you to catch up with everything.

Why do people from Ohio hate LeBron James so much?

I have a few thoughts about my last week activities (see previous posts), that I'll write as soon as my brain recovers. But one thing that was noticeable was how, everytime I went to a bar and the Miami Heat were playing against Oklahoma, everybody was rooting for the Thunders. And I wasn't even in Cleveland. Yes, I know LeBron James is the Ohio young prodigy that used to play for the Cavaliers, so many feel betrayed when he moved to Miami. But wasn't he following exactly the American ideal: go where your best interest lies? I go to Southern Califonia often, and I've never heard any Lakers fanatic ranting against Shaquille O'Neal when he went to play for the Heat. Why the hatred against LeBron James? I don't know much about him beyond how he plays, but what i witnessed last week didn't make much sense to me. And I doubt there were so many people from Oklahoma in town last week, watching their team in a bar.

Oh wow... student email of the year

I received the following email today, from a student I had this Spring:
"Dear SP: I just finished reading Facundo*. I will be in [insert city where the university is] next week, and I would love to get together with you to discuss it. Would you be available?"

*he read it completely on his own, I barely mentioned it in class, and I doubt any other professor told him to read it for pleasure. He is not taking summer classes either.

I'm up to my eyeballs with work, but how can you say no to such a request? The only problem is that now, I will have to refresh my memory, I haven't read it entirely in a long time.

And the Spring student evaluations are in...

...with some surprises and interesting observations. I taught 2 sections of a Beginning Spanish class, and my Latin American Civilization I class. With the two sections of the Beginning Spanish class, I thought that the first class adored me while the second one was just meh... about it. Well, it was exactly the opposite. Regarding the Latin American Civilization I class, I am a little disappointed. I had some of the smartest students I ever had together in a class. Not all of them, but there was a group that was just plain brilliant. So I wanted the best evaluations possible, just as an ego booster (I don't need it, but I like when people say how smart I am). The evaluations, while good, were not better than what I've had in the past when I've taught the class. In part, it's probably due to the fact that their are more astute in their criticism. Furthermore, no matter how much I try, I can't make students passionate for the subject. So besides the recurring conflicting comments such as "You should lecture less and let the class discuss more" vs. "You should lecture more because it's hard to have a class discussion without knowing the material well", probably the most valuable comment I got (more than once) was that the syllabus was uneven. They liked the beginning and the end (questions of historiography and knowledge of the past), and they were less thrilled in the middle (primary documents from Colonial times). For once, I didn't get "more visual material", so I guess I am doing something right that way. Besides that, these are some random thoughts regarding the evaluations:

- Dear student, the class is called Latin American Civilization I (the I underlined like that in the comment)is due to the fact that it covers Latin America from Pre-Columbian times to the period of national independence. It is not because it's supposed to be a beginners, somehow easier class.

-GV, if you are reading this, the article was mentioned twice as one of the highlights of the course.

- "I don't want to learn grammar, I want to know how to construct a sentence". I can understand if you say that I should spend more time developing your ability to construct sentences. But if that is your goal, you do need grammar.

- "She should spend less time talking about Argentina and more time with the material in the text". Geez...thanks, dude. You are really nice.

- Several students in the 101 classes mentioned as a positive how I, unlike other instructors, spend time explaining them the basics of Spanish language, and don't assume they know everything nor do I look impatient when they make questions. Somehow, I am not surprised.

- Even the ones who were less than thrilled by the classes mentioned what a good and patient person I was. That won't give me tenure, but it is rewarding.

I do weird things when I have insomnia and don't remember about it the following day.

I had that revelation half an hour. I am not talking about something like what happens to some people who take Ambien and then have no recollection of their actions the following day. In fact, I only rarely take Ambien. But I just discovered that I do things when I have insomnia and completely forget about it the following day. And it's not just anything. Apparently, I am capable of weird stuff while I have insomnia.

I had insomnia last night. No big deal, since I didn't have to wake up at any particular time today. I hadn't gone drinking either. I just read, surf the internet, read some more until I finally felt asleep around 5am. I checked my work email for the first time today half an hour ago. And what do I find? An email from the university communications office (or something like that) with a $34 receipt confirming that I had ordered...BUSINESS CARDS!!!! Even better, the time on the email was around 2am. I thought it was some kind of spam because: a) I don't remember doing it and b) I've been at my current institution for 5 years and I've never got around to order business cards. To confirm, I checked my online bank statement and sure enough, there was a pending charge for $34 from early this morning.

So it looks like that at 2 in the morning I finally realized how essential business cards are. It beats expensive impulse purchases, that's for sure. And then, I just forgot about it. So I will have business cards for the next academic year. And hopefully, I'll have to order new ones in a year, if I get tenure.

Have you ever bought weird stuff a night you couldn't sleep? I am not talking about being drunk and thinking that you could not live without that amazingly discounted $400 Prada purse (I did that once and promptly returned it). What I have in mind are night purchases done sober, but that the following morning you don't understand why they seemed rational the night before.

What is a real Christian?

"A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip." Such is the random quote I found at my (religious) university website today. Maybe it's because I'm an agnostic Jew. Maybe I need another cup of coffee. But as hard as I try, I can't comprehend its meaning. Would any of my readers be gracious enough to explain it to me? Or at least to make an informed guess?

How to climb the academic ladder...

There is this guy I know since Grad School. We didn't do our PhD together, but we had friends in commons and we would all occasionally hang out at the LASA (Latin American Studies Association)or similar conferences in our field. Back then, he was already an annoying pompous as**hole. He did his PhD at an Ivy, and I will never forget the day he told me: "Because here [the Ivy he was attending] is very different than most other universities. Here, we breathe (sic) theory". I don't usually do this kind of things, but that day I took a special pleasure in humiliating him in public showing his lack of knowledge of the Frankfurt School (he was the one who started talking about Walter Benjamin out of nowhere, and I have a BA in Political Theory, so I know something about the Frankfurt School).

Anyway, this person graduated and got a TT job that, considering the academic job market, most recent PhDs would consider themselves lucky getting it. It's in an attractive midsize city with a lower than average cost of living. It's a public regional university, but they offer a PhD in Spanish. It's a 2-2 teaching load. But he is not like most people. From day one he was complaining about the low quality of the grad students and their lack of a solid theoretical basis. He also behaved like a diva with his colleagues, with a "I'm too good to be here and you should considered yourselves lucky that I accepted this job" attitude. He didn't care to hide his feelings. As a result, he would often have to cancel his graduate seminars for lack of enrollment.

On the other hand, he was extremely productive. His book was published by an excellent press his fourth year into the TT. He seems to publish at least 3 additional articles every year (on very random topics, as if he was recycling every paper he wrote as a grad student). So his colleagues at this university were worried that they would be stuck with him, since it would be very difficult to deny him tenure considering how productive he was -another indication of how little teaching is valued in certain institutions. Lucky for them, he was on the market again since the first semester he arrived at his first job. His colleagues were more than happy to give him excellent letters of recommendation hoping to get rid of him. Three years after his arrival, he got another job. A better one: a TT at a public R1 with a very good reputation.

As you may imagine, that wasn't enough either. Now, only Princeton, Duke, Stanford, Cornell and Harvard were worth of his brilliance. He spent two years at this R1. A few days ago, I don't know exactly what happened, but despite the fact that he had a CV two miles long, a published book and a finished manuscript for a second, his contract was not renewed a third year. But don't worry. He actually landed another TT job, at an R1 with an even better reputation than his previous job. Unbelievable!I've always thought that his CV looked better than his real knowledge. I still think so. But now, I am also convinced that, unless he does something really stupid like sleeping with a student in an institution that actually cares about those things (and yes, some institutions do care. Where I did my PhD a TT professor was told to look for a job elsewhere after it was discovered he was having an affair with a grad student. That despite the fact that they were both in their 30s and single), in the end he will get his dream job at Duke or Princeton. If that ever happened, though, he'd start aiming for an endowed Chair position, and would be miserable if he didn't get it.

UPDATE - Can you talk about race and ethnicity in Latin America?

No, I can't. Seriously. Believe it or not, not every scholar dedicated to Latin American studies is an expert in race and ethnicity in Latin America. As I mentioned yesterday in a post, I was asked if I could put together a presentation about Latin America for a "Multicultural Diversity Workshop" (not the real name, but comes close). I received the request because one scheduled professor had to drop out. There are two organizers for this event. I spoke to one of them yesterday. I asked him if he wanted me to talk about a particular topic, and he said that as long as it somehow fit with the topic of the workshop, I could present whatever I wanted. He just requested that my presentation was not jargon-laden (there will be faculty attending from all kind of departments across campus), and that I structured it in a way where I could generate a good discussion among participants in the last half hour. I had no problem with it. Even better, he told me that presenters would receive $200. Sweet!!!

Today, I got an email from the other organizer, saying that the first organizer had told her that he had spoken with me. Her email asked, in polite terms, if I could focus my presentation on race and ethnicity in Latin America. That was the topic of the presenter that had to drop out, and ze had done this presentation multiple times (this workshop happens once a year) with great success. So could I please talk about race and ethnicity in Latin America? She added that she had the materials and articles that the other presenter uses for the occasion, so she could give them to me to make it easier. Thank God that she emailed me and did not try to contact me on the phone. I would have not been able to hide my anger. I was red furious. I found it deeply offensive that she (who works in a completely unrelated field) asked that, basically, I became a medium to deliver a presentation done by somebody else. What's more, I've been a member of the Diversity Committee in the University for years, and so has she. So she knows I can deliver a good presentation. ON A TOPIC I AM A SPECIALIST!!! I wonder if she caught the irony of her, a white American woman, trying to impose to the Latin American professor what she should talk about, for a workshop that deals with diversity issues. Probably not. After I calmed down I emailed her to explain her that no, I wouldn't be able to do what she had asked me to, because I know very little about the topic and I would find disrespectful to lecture about it with so little knowledge and no time to prepare. I also told her that I didn't feel comfortable almost trying to replicate somebody's else presentation. I finished by saying that I would be happy to continue with what I had planned, but that I completely understood if she wanted to find somebody else to talk about race and ethnicity in Latin America. I asked her to please let me know of the decision by Friday night. If I hadn't heard from her, I would assume that she had found somebody else. I reassured her that I understood why she had asked me to speak about those specific topics, and that I was cool with whatever decision she took.

If it hadn't been for the $200 and the fact that I do not have tenure (in that order, I confess), I would have been less diplomatic and would have told her to find somebody else (in less nicer terms). Later, I found on E-Reserve the materials about race and ethnicity that the professor that drop out was going to talk about. It was about race and ethnicity in Southern Mexico between the Independence and 1865 (I am changing the topic, but you get the idea of how narrow that presentation was). I am sure it is a good presentation, and totally deserving of the praise it received. But I am not a historian and I know very little about race and ethnicity in Latin America. If she had given me two weeks (and paid me accordingly), I would have prepared the best presentation ever on race and ethnicity in Latin America. Or in Japanese film and the French New Wave, if she wanted. But to assume that anybody, just for the fact that she specializes in Latin American studies, can talk about anything, is offensive. I work on Contemporary Latin American literature, and the professor who couldn't make it is a Colonial Latin America historian. A small difference, I would say. And that she actually tried to impose the topic I had to talk about would be beyond the pale if it wasn't laughable. She conformed to more than one stereotype of things she fights against. I guess cultural imperialism is not one of them, though. If I had been approached the first time with the straight request: "Hey, Professor X can't make it, but we really want the attendees to hear that presentation. Would you mind delivering it if I gave you all the materials", I would have no problem. But now, even if her colleague made a mistake when he first approach me, she should realize that backing down is rude, to say the least.

I'll let you know how this end up. I will probably present whatever I want, and she will probably be pissed at my non-compliance. Whatever...

UPDATE: I just got an email from Organizer number 2. She tells me to go ahead and do the presentation I had intended. I think I will modify it slightly, though. Now, I will prepare my presentation on cultural imperialism in the US academia as it relates to the study of Latin America. She won't like it, but whatever... And she won't kick me from the Diversity Committee. Very few people want to be a part of that committee: it's not fancy, it gives its members no power whatsoever, and you are bound to get into a fight once every so often with the most conservative faculty of this institution.

Is anybody going to spend next week as an AP reader in a Midwestern city?

If so, drop me an email because we are probably going to coincide in the same city, and it would be cool to get to know readers and/or fellow bloggers IRL. My email is spanishprof02 at gmail dot com

I need help from my readers...

I've been tapped at the last minute by a "Multicultural Academic Workshop" to replace a professor who can't attend. There are not many guidelines about the prrsentation. I've attended such a workshop a few years ago, and the quality was really uneven. Some presentations were so jargon-ladder that they would put Fredric Jameson to sleep. On the other hand, the biology professor was fascinating. He focused on pollution and business within the city, and how it correlates with lower income neighborhoods. So I am not very sure what I will talk about, but knowing myself, I'll try to ruffle a few feathers. And maybe convinced the gender studies English professor that Isabel Allende s**cks.

Back to my cry for help: I've been thinking that a good starting point would be Fuguet's prologue to the McOndo anthology. It's bombastic and sometimes innacurate, but it is a great text to start shattering stereotypes. The big problem is that I only have a copy in Spanish, and the course is entirely in English. I don't even know if it has been translated into English. So my question (more like begging)is: do you know if there is a copy somewhere of that Prologue in English? If so, do you have access to it? Is there any place where I can find it online? Seriously, if you know where to find a copy of Fuguet's work, I'll be forever grateful. And remember that I need it by Monday.

PS: even if you do not find the complete text, anything you can bring me will make incredibly happy.

Waxing and politics in Buenos Aires

As I mentioned in a previous post, the economic situation is quickly deteriorating in Argentina. As a result, the "cacerolazos" (pot and pan banging as a form of protest) have made a comeback. So far, they are isolated and have taken place in upper and upper middle class neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. It is never very clear what they are exactly protesting about. And while so far a majority of those participating in the protests are well-off neighbors, it would be a mistake to dismiss the phenomenon and the discontent with Kirchner's government to a wealthy right-wing minority. A lot of people from very different social classes are angry against the government. A case in point is what happened to me Friday afternoon.

The "cacerolazos" started again last Thursday night. Many people participated in the neighborhood my parents live (Palermo). On Friday afternoon, I went to a spa salon near their apartment to wax my legs (it's incredibly cheap in Buenos Aires, $10 for full-legs). The lady who was waxing my legs started talking, and asked me if I knew whether there was going to be another "cacerolazo" in the neighborhood that Friday night. I didn't know. So she goes on:

"Because I want to take part in the protests, because we are heading in the wrong direction, but in my neighborhood, La Paternal (a middle and lower-middle class neighborhood), nobody is protesting. So I brought along with me the lid of my pan. If there is another "cacerolazo", I'll wait around and participate"

As soon as she says that, she stops working on my leg, grabs her purse and opens it. Sure enough, there was the lid of a pan inside it. I was fascinated. The situation was bizarre and surreal, but also kind of refreshing. Although I absolutely disagree with those "cacerolazos", I couldn't help but notice that Argentina is a society where people will look for and find opportunities to express their discontent every day. This woman had brought the lid of a pan with her to work so she could manifest her anger with the situation in a public protest after she finished working. When you think about the apathy in the United States, I couldn't help but admire her.

PS: She did go back to work and finish waxing my legs. She did a good job. There was another "cacerolazo" that night, so she got her chance too.

Pablo Trapero's new film: Elefante Blanco

While in Buenos Aires, I had the opportunity to watch Pablo Trapero's newly released film, Elefante Blanco. With Pablo Trapero, it is always a guess what you will get. He is one of the most solid, consistent directors in Argentina. He can shoot a scene and narrate a story like very few directors can. Not every critic likes him. Some miss the minimalism of his first film, Mundo Grua (1999). While I understand the importance of Mundo Grua in the renewal of Argentine cinema at the end of the XXth century, I prefer his second film, EL BONAERENSE.

Elefante Blanco is the story of two Third World priests, Julian and Nicolas, working in a "villa miseria" (slum) in Buenos Aires while two different drug gangs fight for the territory. The movie is flawed in many ways, but definitely worth seeing. What are the strengths and the weaknesses of the movie?

Let's start commenting the highlights of the movie with an anecdote. I have a Brazilian friend who is a film critic for an important Brazilian newspaper. As such, he gets invited to many film festival. He once told me the surreal story of the day the French Embassy decided to host the opening screening and ceremony of a French Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro... in the top of a favela!!! Let's just say that after watching Trapero's film, no French diplomat will ever consider hosting the opening ceremony of a French Film Festival in Buenos Aires in a "villa miseria". There lies the best thing about the movie. The mise-en-scene, the way it is shot, is the opposite of that awful Cidade de Deus, with its pornographic aestheticism of violence. Violence is not choreographed, and is only used when it serves a narrative purpose.

Why am I not more enthusiast about the film? Because the script is weak. There are too many subplots. Some are completely unnecessary, and others could be the focus of the story just on their own. As a result, there are too many loose ends. Furthermore, the character played by Ricardo Darin (as one of the priests) makes no sense. Maybe it's because I've gotten to know many Third World priests because of my job. But all those priests I know would never behave like Darin's character does. The ending is particularly disappointing. However, it doesn't ruin the movie. The other priest, played Jérémie Renier, is very well developed and constructed. The good parts are strong enough to overcome its weaknesses. In addition, for me, it will be a very useful movie to use in a classroom and spark discussions. To sum up, the mise-en-scene and Jérémie Renier overcome the less than stellar script, and make the movie worth watching. Here is a trailer, as a teaser:

Flying with American Airlines is scary...

Flying with American Airlines is scary. I am finally back to the US, with a delay of only one day. This post, though, is not about the inconvenience of the trip back to the US. American Airlines managed to scare the heck out of me. My plane was supposed to leave Buenos Aires Sunday at 10:30 pm. Boarding and departure were delayed for an hour and a half because of "technical problems". Near midnight, the plane finally took off. An hour and a half later, the captain announced that do to technical problems, he had decided to return to Buenos Aires, but that he "anticipate(d) a normal landing". Nice reassurance. We asked one of the flight attendants what was going on, and she said that the plane had troubles with its hydraulic system. She was obviously pissed, because she added: "If it had been up to me, we shouldn't have left the airport, but I am not the one calling the shots, obviously". The plane landed safely, though there was an impressive display of firetrucks, ambulance and rescue teams waiting for us.

They reassigned us to different flights the following day. I was put on an American Airlines flight to Dallas taking off the following night. While the plane in itself was incredibly uncomfortable, I was happy. I had tickets for Tuesday night to go and see really cool and amazing band here in my adopted hometown, and it looked like I was going to be able to make it. So this morning, I am at the Dallas airport, waiting to board my last American Airlines flight back home. Suddenly, an American Airlines employee announces that they were inspecting the aircraft due to technical issues, do boarding would be delayed. 15 minutes later she announces that they were looking for a new aircraft, so we should pay attention for a gate change. Half an hour later, though, they announced that they are ready to start boarding, in the same plane that supposedly had technical issues. I was not in a position to complain, I only wanted to be back home in time for awesome band concert. It was a small plane, and I was sitting on the back. After the plane took off, the flight attendant came over and explained all of us sitting in the back that in case of an emergency, we wouldn't be using the emergency exit located in the middle of the plane, but just the one in the front. My guess? It wasn't working but they decided to use the plane regardless, so that they didn't loose money. Hardly encouraging. I will think twice in the future before booking with American Airlines. On the good side, I made it home safely and in time for amazing concert from awesome band. Good way to end a two day trip.