The University Chameleon: Identity and Time Issues Faced by Faculty in Dual Positions

My transition into full-time administration came gradually. A young assistant professor of English, I got my first taste of administration when I accepted a position as coordinator of my university’s study abroad programs. Later I served an enriching experience as director of my university’s honors college. With both positions, I remained on faculty, teaching usually a couple of courses each semester. Over time, I felt a certain dissonance in my dual role. A double agent of sorts,1 I felt pulled-in terms of time and especially identity-between my role as faculty member and my role as administrator. In fact, I came to a juncture in my career when I knew that I had essentially two choices: to return to full-time faculty or to move into full-time administration. I chose the latter, thereby resolving, at least in part, the tension that I had earlier felt

Transatlantic terror: James Hammond’s circulating library and the Minerva Press Gothic novel

This essay examines the cataloguing practices of James Hammond, the proprietor of a large nineteenth-century New England circulating library, and the marginalia in his collection of sixty-five Minerva Press gothic novels, which were later acquired by the New York Society Library in New York City. Hammond’s catalogues, four of which are examined here, arranged and altered Minerva titles and authors and appended reviews. These promotional strategies foregrounded the gothic content of these novels and attested to their quality. In so doing, the catalogues assisted subscribers in selecting books and prepared them for reading those selections. If Hammond’s catalogs prepared patrons for quality gothic reading experiences, the novels’ marginalia reshaped patrons’ expectations and influenced their engagement with the novels. Written by other subscribers or earlier readers, these marginalia evaluated the novels and commented on their gothic and non-gothic elements. In the process, the marginalia sometimes supported, and at other times conflicted with, Hammond’s promotional strategies. For Hammond’s patrons, the catalogues and the marginalia constituted two points of entry into the Minerva gothic novel. Only by examining both the catalogues and the marginalia can scholars assess the degree to which Minerva’s gothic novels terrified and delighted New England readers decades after the press’s London heyday

Handle with Care

This essay examines two sets of coronavirus-prevention guidelines issued by New York City’s health department in early spring 2020. The department advised residents not to touch their faces “unless” they had washed their hands but advised them to masturbate “especially if” they had washed their hands. Those recommendations reshaped New Yorkers’ relationship to their bodies and, in so doing, contributed to a new permutation of biopower. Drawing on several theories of biopower, this essay’s first section explains that the department’s recommendations used large-scale biopolitical tactics with small-scale implications to encourage New Yorkers to meet the expectations of what Nikolas Rose has called “biological citizenship.” Exploring potential responses to the body’s biopolitical regulation, this essay’s second section considers the prohibition against touching in Sigmund Freud’s outdated but culturally resonant theory of obsessional neurosis. While obsessional neurosis may transgress, cancel, or achieve a compromise with that prohibition, only a ceremonial such as handwashing offers promise for responsible action. However, it, like the obsessional’s other actions, operates in a cycle of desire and prohibition which cannot fully account for how biopower now promotes and regulates bodily knowledge and movement. In search of alternatives, this essay’s final section turns to four coronavirus-themed pornographic videos produced by gay and bisexual men. These videos troubled public-health guidelines while providing potential viewers in New York and beyond with critical and creative options for pandemic-era action. In sum, these productions revealed that creation can come out of crisis.Cet article examine deux séries de directives de prévention concernant le coronavirus émises par le Service de santé de la ville de New York au début du printemps 2020. Le service a conseillé aux habitants de ne pas se toucher le visage "à moins" de s'être lavé les mains, mais leur a conseillé de se masturber "surtout" s'ils se sont lavés les mains. Ces recommandations ont redéfini la relation des New-Yorkais avec leur corps et, ce faisant, ont contribué à une nouvelle mutation du biopouvoir. S'appuyant sur plusieurs théories du biopouvoir, la première section de cet article montre que les recommandations du service de santé ont fait appel à des tactiques biopolitiques à grande échelle avec des implications à petite échelle pour encourager les New-Yorkais à répondre aux attentes de ce que Nikolas Rose a appelé la "citoyenneté biologique". Explorant les réponses potentielles à la régulation biopolitique du corps, la deuxième section de cet article examine l'interdiction du toucher dans la théorie de la névrose obsessionnelle de Sigmund Freud, une théorie dépassée mais qui résonne dans la culture. Si la névrose obsessionnelle peut transgresser, supprimer ou parvenir à un compromis avec cette interdiction, seul un cérémonial tel que le lavage des mains offre la promesse d'une action responsable. Cependant, ce cérémonial, comme les autres actions de la névrose obsessionnelle, opère dans un cycle de désir et d'interdiction qui ne peut rendre pleinement compte de la manière dont le biopouvoir promeut et régule aujourd'hui la connaissance du corps et son mouvement. À la recherche d'alternatives, la dernière section de cet article se tourne vers quatre vidéos pornographiques sur le thème du coronavirus produites par des hommes gays ou bisexuels. Ces vidéos ont remis en question les directives de santé publique tout en offrant aux spectateurs potentiels de New York et d'ailleurs des options critiques et créatives pour agir à l'ère de la pandémie. En somme, ces productions ont révélé que la crise peut engendrer la créativité

Honors Living-Learning Communities: A Model of Success and Collaboration

All too often on college campuses, academic affairs and student affairs work in near isolation from each other. In their traditional roles, academic affairs promotes students’ learning in the classroom while student affairs cares for students’ personal development outside the classroom. Yet, if higher education aspires to graduate students who can meet the challenges of the modern world, then universities have an obligation to launch collaborative projects that bring together the disparate facets of students’ lives. Living-learning communities, a model for collaboration between academic affairs and student affairs, can meet that goal (Schroeder & Mabel, 1994)