In 2016, I came across an old letter from a long-time family friend, Mulford Sibley, among my father’s papers.[1] Mulford, writing on May 29, 1940 from Urbana, Illinois, to his sister Margaret, pinpointed the beginning of the Champaign County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Mulford Sibley (1912-1989) was a professor of political […]
Countering Pusillanimosity
I’m reading Ali Smith’s Autumn: a novel (Pantheon Books, 2016). The main character is an art historian (and she’s employed!) But it is really about deep relationships among a few people across a number of decades. This excerpt made me sad, angry, sympathetic, and distressed, because it captures my swath feelings as we start 2018: […]
A Tribute to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
My father, Don Irish, died in April of 2017. For the last five years of his life, many of us helped him write his memoirs. We self-published the book in 2015. I share an excerpt here that seems particularly relevant to the harassment of untenured professors (often people of color) that is occurring across the country […]
What’s Next with “No Budget”?
The president of the University, Tim Killeen, just sent an email to everybody in the University of Illinois system called “No state budget.” I do not want to minimize the enduring damage that has been done to programs and services that have benefited many people in the state and that have had to close due […]
Dear Governor Rauner
I am not proud to say that I stopped writing politicians several decades ago. OK, I’ve sent an occasional email, usually prompted by some Facebook post, but my overly-long, impassioned missives to national and state officials ended with my use of the typewriter and carbon paper. Similarly, this old newspaper photo of me in front […]
Stand. Point.
Poem written in January 2014, but still relevant. I can’t stand it. Standpoint: White woman feminist with Middle-class roots deep in the last century, I stand in silence. A gap Agape (Gr. Αγάπη) Not speaking because If I speak I harm those with whom I want to stand. White supremacy leaks toxins Into conversations, lectures, […]
Gift Horse
Hans Haacke’s sculpture for the Fourth Plinth, Gift Horse, installed in Trafalgar Square in March 2015 has been much on my mind. The prominent public location in London, the ribbon of stock prices scrolling in a bow around the skeletal horse’s neck, and the conversation Haacke had with Jon Bird at the Institute for Contemporary […]
Youth Advocacy and Action
Recently the federal government distributed a Call for Proposals for Performance Partnership Pilot (P3) projects. A group of us locally has been considering how we might participate. Aside from the enormous amount of work involved in submitting a federal grant, and the long-shot nature of such an effort, another aspect has been giving me pause: […]
DOCC14 @ UIUC
Heath Schultz wrote last year about the sadness he felt living in these times. (See the full and excellent dialogue with Sarah Kanouse: Sarah Kanouse & Heath Schultz (2013) “Notes on Affective Practice: An Exchange,” Parallax 19:2, 7-20.) Heath reflected: [S]adness is not a neurosis stemming from my ‘personal’ life. Instead I’d like to insist, […]
On Not Moving On
I am reading Glen Sean Coulthard’s Red Skin, White Masks (2014). One strategy I use when I am confused and trying to figure out next steps in politico-cultural action is to pick a book like Coulthard’s and find passages in it that help me understand what might be going on. Not that Coulthard is or […]
