Announcement
I am feeling rotten—I have a sore throat, a runny nose, and a nasty cough, and I can’t seem to stay awake for more than a few hours at a time. And of course I have to grade a stack of papers and two stacks of final exams. That is my announcement for today.
Oh, no, wait. I also managed to squeak by two considerably more accomplished and distinguished scholars to win the presidential election of the Modern Language Association. I become second veep in 2010, first veep in 2011, and president in 2012, just as the world ends.
Analysts are attributing my historic, Jesse Venturian victory to my promise, made late in the campaign, to “hunt down cultural studies programs and kill them.”
I now have to assemble a team of advisers with close ties to former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin. Are there any left?
Many thanks to everyone who voted for me! It’s a little thoroughly hard to believe. But perhaps that makes sense in light of my campaign slogan, “change you can’t quite believe in.”
Get better! And your win is probably due to the fact that your name starts with a “B” - I suspect you were first on the ballot. (I’m extrapolating from elections for AMS president, were the person first in alphabetic order usually wins since most people don’t care either way and just check the first box on the ballot...) Nevertheless, congrats
Posted by on 12/14 at 01:18 PMI have no snarky witticisms to offer—I tried for a bit but my heart’s not in it—I’ll just offer congratulations. Let me just say that under your reign I look forward to Theory Tuesday being celebrated throughout the land. Be sure to let us know when 2012 gets here.
Captcha: “way”, as in “Bérubé won?!? No way!!” “Way.”
Posted by Dave Maier on 12/14 at 01:35 PMHey, congrats!
and president in 2012, just as the world ends.
Cool. Do you mind if I share your celebration party? Dec. 20th is my b-day, so we could have one monster Presidential/Minister of Justice B-Day/ Day-Before-the-World-Ends blow out party! (Both Modern and non-Modern language speakers would be welcome, of course).
Posted by on 12/14 at 01:41 PMI told you those photos of you wrapped in the American flag would work! God bless you, Mr. President.
Posted by on 12/14 at 02:00 PMCongratulations… Obviously your opponents failed to capitalize on this blog and the myriad mix of miscreants who participate here. That should by all electoral standards put you in the good company of Emperor Obama in his guilty associations with known terrorists, socialists and others who would throw tour American values right under the bus along with their grandmothers.
Oh wait a minute he won too....
Posted by on 12/14 at 02:00 PMMorning in America at last!
Or right there at the end, anyway…Congratulations Herr Professor Doktor Bérubé
More helpful than those who have buzzed Bob Rubin’s cheeks, I recommend “Fisherman’s Friends” menthol cough suppressant lozenges...nasty taste, indescribable color, they do the trick.
(I will not attribute the global depression/swine flu to buzzing Bob Rubin’s cheeks.)
Posted by neill on 12/14 at 02:02 PMyour win is probably due to the fact that your name starts with a “B” - I suspect you were first on the ballot.
You would think so, Christian, but you’d be wrong—Kwame Anthony Appiah was first on the ballot, and David Damrosch was third. I was nearly invisible on the second line. Though perhaps the “butterfly” ballot format worked in my favor.
Dec. 20th is my b-day, so we could have one monster Presidential/Minister of Justice B-Day/ Day-Before-the-World-Ends blow out party!
Let the party begin! Saturday, December 19, 2009 - Monday, December 31, 2012. Remember to pace yourselves, everyone!
Posted by on 12/14 at 02:03 PMCongrats! I always knew that, although you are richly compensated, you were slacking off and could add the presidency of the MLA to your practically empty schedule.
Also wonder how Louis Proyect and David Horowitz will analyze this election result? And what does Nate Silver have to say: upset or to be expected?
Inquiring minds, etc.
Posted by John Protevi on 12/14 at 02:11 PMCongratulations! I, too, yearn for the return of Theory Tuesday. Your MLA address should be titled, “The Triumph of Theory Tuesday,” following J. Hillis Miller’s famous 1986 triumphalism. And then every blog in the land will be required to devote Tuesdays accordingly. Either that, or “The Triumph of Sublime and Funky Love.” You at least have to work that in somewhere, okay?
Posted by on 12/14 at 02:11 PMWho could have seen this coming? Sadly all Rubinites are otherwise occupied rescuing US from all of those poor people who caused our economic collapse.
I’m uncertain ... is it congratulations that are in order on such an occasion? Well, one can’t go wrong with best of luck so here’s to that.
Also, a belated congratulations to Jamie on his LifeLink excursion and to his parents for their commendable adjustment.
Posted by on 12/14 at 02:13 PMCongratulations, Michael!
captcha: both sublime and funky
That is to say, it would be both sublime and funky if, as your first act as MLA President, you created the post of Permanent Advisor on Marine Biology to the Executive Director and then, in grand nepotistic fashion, appointed Jamie to the post.
Posted by Bill Benzon on 12/14 at 02:30 PMCongratulations! I, for one, welcome our new occasionally postmodern overlords.
Posted by on 12/14 at 02:31 PMYou would think so, Christian, but you’d be wrong—Kwame Anthony Appiah was first on the ballot, and David Damrosch was third.
Shocking. It seems the MLA members actually thought before they voted. I’d still like to see randomized ballot orders just because I’m curious what impact it has. But is the AMS listening to me? No. So Now I’m proposing it to the future MLA president.
Posted by on 12/14 at 03:09 PMMichael - no, no! The world apparently ends on Dec 21, 2012, not Dec. 31. According to teh Google, anyway.
Posted by on 12/14 at 03:11 PMSee, Oaktown Girl, already Michael’s Pre-Presidential Grace and Largesse has bought the world 10 more days. It’s the power of the GNF.
Posted by Bill Benzon on 12/14 at 03:37 PMSee if you can work both “sublime” and “funky” into your acceptance speech....
Posted by on 12/14 at 03:39 PMBill - quite right!
Let’s roll the soundtrack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuR-kDVMoqEPosted by on 12/14 at 03:45 PMOh, Oaktown Girl, that was a great link!
People, people, we got to get over before we go under!
Captcha, and I kid you not: “united” as in “states of funk”
Posted by John Protevi on 12/14 at 03:50 PMWhen the president of the AHA rears his head into MLA airspace, we’ll be counting on you, Michael Hussein Berube.
I voted for you, so congratulations to both of us! I’ve met Appiah, too, so clearly retail politics has nothing on good new-fashioned Netroots politicking.
Posted by on 12/14 at 04:17 PMIn the holiday spirit perhaps you can nominate you vanquished foes to ..... some committee.
captcha had as in “you had me at hello”
Posted by on 12/14 at 04:43 PMCongrats, Michael! Both my dad and my wife are MLA members. Does your victory mean that they get free cruise missiles? Or will they have to wait until you actually assume the presidency?
Posted by Ben Alpers on 12/14 at 05:10 PMCongratulations!
(You’ll be pleased to know this well-wishing doesn’t say anything other than that one word because I deleted several puns that cross-referenced other threads. If that seems unimpressive, consider my captcha: else. As in, X or else Y. So many possibilities forgone...)
Posted by on 12/14 at 05:30 PMCongratulations! Great to see ACORN come through in the clutch yet again.
Posted by on 12/14 at 06:12 PMCongratulations!
Since you really can’t do justice to those exams and papers feeling the way you do, in the few hours tonight you’ll be awake you might as well curl up in front of the Rangers game, eh?
{Question for anyone who might really be watching that or especially have been in the Garden lately: Are the Chase ads that are plastered high on the end glass (and the penalty box glass) some kind of tricky technology that makes them only visible from the front? If not, aren’t they irritating to fans sitting behind them?}
Posted by Nell on 12/14 at 08:29 PMJesse Venturian victory
If such is the case, then you ain’t got time to cough.
Seriously though, congratulations and get well soon. That change to January in 2011 is a huge shift. You all will be going head to head with the AHA!
Posted by J— on 12/14 at 09:51 PMCongratulations, Michael!
Posted by on 12/14 at 10:15 PMCongratulations, Michael. I too was ill this past week, same symptoms. But I didn’t win the presidency of anything, so I beg to differ!
Was your victory truly third party, meaning that you lacked official sounding endorsements? If so, doubly exciting! Or is that only a third more exciting?
Best to you, and my condolences to your family...You’re gonna be a busy guy…
Posted by Mitchell Freedman on 12/15 at 12:08 AMI am not sure offering you congratulations is the best response. It seems to me that you might be in for quite a ride, and choosing to be immersed in the administrivia and minutia of the day might mean overworked and not at home. But congrats are in order, for now, and you richly deserve the victory.
Posted by on 12/15 at 12:51 AMMany congratulations to you! Now all the major media will be wanting to know if your wife wears sleeveless dresses and what your pickup game is like. Are you ready for that kind of grilling?
I have to say, this makes MLA attendance seem much more appealing. I’ve been avoiding it like the plague for years. As a lowly part-time lecturer, I’ve considered not-going-to-MLA part of my compensation package.
Posted by on 12/15 at 01:29 AMJohn P - so glad you liked the link.
And since the V. Ed brought it up: for those of you interested, here’s a very good summary of the independent review of ACORN. Everyone should at least take a quick glance at it, and bookmark in case you need to send it to wingnut relatives who have you on their email teabagger list. (Not that facts matter to them, but still...).
Posted by on 12/15 at 01:43 AMWait...you already declared that ‘cultural studies are dead’ to you, so how can you now hunt down and kill that which is at least metaphorically dead in your own mind.
We shall continue to monitor your pronouncements for accuracy and entertainment value, though not necessarily in that order.
Cheers and congratulations.
Posted by on 12/15 at 02:19 AMWow, Oaktown Girl, I am shocked by the results of that independent review. It’s as if someone told me the climategate emails don’t discredit global warming science in the least.
Posted by on 12/15 at 07:41 AMMichael,
Congratulations! and thanks for taking this on. I think the MLA will truly benefit with you at the helm (although there’s no convention next year? What will we all do on December 27-28?).One kinda serious question: Will you be able to put disability and Disability Studies more prominently on everyone’s radar? I think the MLA tries to accommodate people with disabilities, but the membership could really use a kick-in-the- pants to get them to teach about disability.
John
Posted by on 12/15 at 10:30 AMMichael, in announcing your victory you forgot to thank The Architect. Also, now that the election is over, can I assume your robocalls will stop?
Posted by on 12/15 at 11:26 AMAs President, what do you intend to do about the Oxford comma?
Posted by Michael Drake on 12/15 at 12:06 PMCongratulations, and didn’t I say? First order of business: I think you should institute an MLA musical anthem, and all members should have to sing it before the presidential address. I vote for “Brick House”
Posted by on 12/15 at 12:36 PMI was about to leave a snarky remark, but then Fate intervened, and because even I wouldn’t have believed me had I said what it was, I captcha’d the captcha ... which, as everyone can see, is Fate telling Michael that now that he’s the President of the MLA, he needs to score me one of those (preferably of the T-T and 1-1 variety, but I’ll settle for a 2-2).
Posted by SEK on 12/15 at 12:53 PMJohn, Those of us on the Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession have been doing our best for some time, as has Rosemary Feal, who runs the MLA. It’s just that the membership’s pants require some pretty intense and repeated kicks. I suggested banners for people to bring to panels, banners that read “USE THE GODDAMN MICROPHONE.”
It’d also be nice to see sign-language interpreters made a regular feature of the Presidential Address, although they charge double for working at Bérubéan speed. Indeed, that accommodation should have been instituted long ago.
Posted by on 12/15 at 01:10 PMIt’s as if someone told me the climategate emails don’t discredit global warming science in the least.
V.Ed - as the kids today would say, “I know, right?”
John @33 I think the MLA will truly benefit with you at the helm
Why has Toonces the Driving Cat suddenly popped into my mind?
Posted by on 12/15 at 02:11 PMI understand that the MLA has 30 different words for hockey.
Posted by on 12/15 at 02:19 PMNo kidding! Congratulations! Hope to see you around at MLA, with the luster of your new position on your brow.
Posted by on 12/15 at 02:22 PMYour new position comes with a Luster? Well I guess someone has to hunt in the grass by the flower tree.
Posted by on 12/15 at 02:32 PMThanks, everyone! I’ve decided to celebrate by sleeping 14 hours a day. So I see I’ve missed the last 35 comments. Working backwards:
JP @ 42: Damn, I snagged on a nail again.
Heidi @ 41: you know what we French-Canadians say—mon front est ceint de fleurons glorieux. It’ll be just like that.
JP @ 40: now it does.
O-Girl @ 39: and your point would be?
Josh @ 38: it’s not just the microphone, as you know. It’s also bringing a couple of copies of large-font printouts of your talk. And I must have missed something—was there a recent MLA Presidential Address with no ASL interpreter? Because I promise to have one, and I promise to speak at ordinary human speed. Just this once.
SEK @ 37: there are 1-1 jobs?
Stephanie @ 36: you’re right, the fix was in. I’m sure my good friends from the State of Daley and Blagojevich voted early and often. Thanks! As for the anthem, I think O-Girl had this covered @ 17. I will do my best to follow in the footsteps of another famous and sublimely funky president, Gerald Ford.
OK, pause for breath.
Posted by on 12/15 at 08:04 PMMichael Drake @ 35: I have no strong feelings, inclinations, or aversions to the Oxford comma. But I can promise you that as MLA president, I will abolish Chicago style. My reign will represent the final triumph of MLA style over Chicago style, not only because Chicago style is stupid and bad but also because I am tired of Chicago having to have a “style” of everything. Chicago-style hot dogs—i.e., hot dogs with a lot of stuff on them. Chicago-style pizza—i.e., pizza casserole. Chicago-style blues—well, OK, that one can stay. But Chicago-style footnotes have got to go.
Tim @ 34: you don’t want robocalls, it’s your own damn fault for moving to Iowa. Just wait until I run for re-election. Now get in there and caucus!
John @ 33: there’s no convention next year? What will we all do on December 27-28?
The convention has been moved, at long last, to early January—beginning in 2011. What will we do December 27-30, 2010? Well, why not a four-day party kicked off by ... “Brick House”?
About disability studies: but of course. The MLA was way ahead of the curve on this, but there’s still plenty of work to do.
And mandarama @ 29: definitely come on back to the convention. The 3-on-3 tournament and the sleeveless-dress ball are gonna be the most fun things a scholarly conference has ever seen—at least since Northrop Frye’s famous Presidential Pool Party in 1976.
Posted by on 12/15 at 08:15 PMOkay, since I have been temporarily re-exiled to the icy wastes of Iowa, I will work backwards in reverse:
Congratulations, Professor; or should I say, Vice-President Elect Elect? I voted for you several times, and I’m not even a MLA member. Also, feel better. I command it.
The world apparently ends on Dec 21, 2012, not Dec. 31.
No, it ends the following month, when Sarah Palin takes the presidential oath of office. (Which has become a lot likelier, thanks to “government-mandated purchase of the same shitty private health insurance” at the WH’s insistence.)
You’ll be pleased to know this well-wishing doesn’t say anything other than that one word because I deleted several puns that cross-referenced other threads.
Hey! If this is anyone other than Salient, you’re stealing my bit!
Posted by on 12/15 at 10:22 PMCongrats! Is it in your powers to bring the MLA convention to Canada? Like, maybe, Winnipeg! I can’t think of many other places as lovely in mid-winter.
Posted by on 12/16 at 12:01 AMWell, I’m disappointed in your no-position position on the Oxford comma. But I support total MLA hegemony, if only because it would mean fewer sets of standards to contend with.
Posted by Michael Drake on 12/16 at 12:48 AMchange you can’t quite believe in
Word up, but in light of recent events we’ll be sure to count it carefully. This news be sick, dawg!
Posted by on 12/16 at 03:56 AMCongrats! Or condolences? Seriously, it’s the first time I’ve ever voted in an MLA election, and I’m very pleased to see that my vote counted. Trumpets, bells, whistles, etc. Feel better!
Posted by on 12/16 at 07:22 AMKathy—in fact, it may have been your vote that gave me that one-vote margin.
Romy B., I do not understand your sublime and funky banter.
And Clare, we’ve had the MLA in Toronto twice (1993, 1997), but post-9/11 stupidities make it impossible for many of our foreign scholars to re-enter the US after attending a conference in an enemy nation like Canadia. If I can change that, I will....
And now to comments I couldn’t reply to yesterday!
Oregon Sage @ 31: you already declared that ‘cultural studies are dead’ to you, so how can you now hunt down and kill that which is at least metaphorically dead in your own mind.
But it doesn’t matter if cultural studies is dead to me. Now I have to make sure that it’s dead to everybody else, see?
Spyder, Mitchell, Jenell and J-- @ 25-28: thanks! Don’t worry about my schedule, though—I’m working it out. For the next two years, it’s no more arduous than serving on the MLA Executive Committee, which I did from 2002 to 2005. Only in 2012 do I have all-day meetings with the Liberal Cabal that controls higher education in the US, and then I get to go head-to-head with the AHA in January 2013. Two scholarly associations meet—only one leaves! This blog knows how to run a cage match, you know.
Nell @ 24: Since you really can’t do justice to those exams and papers feeling the way you do, in the few hours tonight you’ll be awake you might as well curl up in front of the Rangers game, eh?
That was a great suggestion, so I decided to take it—until I realized that I don’t have the Comcast hockey package this season. So I went online to buy it, only to find that the $169 package I bought last year would cost me $480 this year. Four hundred and eighty effing dollars? WTF? Is Comcast a health insurance company now?
V. Ed @ 23: yes, it is good to see ACORN’s hard work pay off. They’re also helping me with my taxes this year!
Ben @ 21 and black dog buzzkill @ 12: it means that MLA members will receive occasionally postmodern cruise missiles. Sometimes they hit their targets, sometimes they dissolve into tissues of différance.
And finally, Bill @ 11: it would be both sublime and funky if, as your first act as MLA President, you created the post of Permanent Advisor on Marine Biology to the Executive Director and then, in grand nepotistic fashion, appointed Jamie to the post.
Interdisciplinarity, nepotism, and sharks. What’s not to like? Thanks, Bill—and thanks to everyone who stopped by! Now back to
sleepgrading final exams.Posted by Michael on 12/16 at 09:01 AMCongratulations, Michael! But now that you’ve been elected, you’ll no doubt start breaking promises. What about your promise to make the Division on Comparative Studies in Romanticism and the 19th Century drop their Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy?
The vote wasn’t that much of a decision for me. I like Appiah’s work, but he’s not a lit & language guy by training, and his statement showed only the vaguest awareness of the vast crisis engulfing the profession. And frankly, I’m not sure anyone wearing the Ivy-league blinkers is in a position to recognize the calamity that is overtaking us. So I voted for the guy at the land grant institution, who has a long record of fighting for academic freedom and fair employment practices, and a funny blog.
Posted by on 12/16 at 11:20 AMCultural Studies is the wrong war. It was Semiotics that attacked us.
Posted by on 12/16 at 02:43 PMBut Max, cultural studies is now the central front in the war on Theory. We have to fight it there so that we don’t wind up fighting it here.
Besides, I have very good intelligence* that our enemies can now deliver cultural studies to our homes within 45 minutes.
_____
* Namely, a cab driver who once lived in Birmingham.Posted by Michael on 12/16 at 03:06 PMACORN is like an Illuminati/Freemason/ACLU/Cosa Nostra combo.
Posted by Peter K. on 12/16 at 03:32 PMCongrajamulations!
Can’t you just shrink cultural studies, then drown them in the bath tub?
Oh - and I suppose this means the penguins win another cup, too. (sigh.)
Posted by jazzbumpa on 12/16 at 04:40 PMUnderstood. Also,I heard the defection rate after the APSA conf. in Toronto was pretty high. Can’t risk it with humanities scholars.
Posted by on 12/16 at 10:05 PMthe $169 package I bought last year would cost me $480 this year. ... WTF? Is Comcast a health insurance company now?
Something very like it, I think. DirecTV Center Ice doesn’t include Versus this year because Comcast is charging them an outrageous price for it. When you go to the channe there’s a little DTV diatribe about it.
Biggest media company in the world, now, once they swallow NBC. (Comcast, that is.)
Posted by Nell on 12/16 at 10:58 PMOh, now I feel really smart for having ditched DirecTV for Comcast’s Triple Play. Mother-in-law of Moloch. Which reminds me—Clare, there’s another issue with Toronto as well: the city would have to get itself an NHL franchise before I would consider holding the MLA convention there.
Posted by Michael on 12/16 at 11:06 PMOh goodie. This is a good good thing. Get better soon so you can start kicking ass, as we old ladies like to put it.
Posted by Hattie on 12/17 at 12:58 AMMichael and all: if anyone needs sign language interpretation for the Presidential Address, all they have to do is let us know in advance and we will provide it. The accommodation is there, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to hire interpreters if there is no need for their services. We’ve been known to arrange things last minute, too, so if someone has a sudden urge to go to the Presidential Address, get in touch with our staff at the Attendees w/ Disabilities tables or through HQs.
Posted by Rosemary Feal on 12/17 at 06:45 PMI got nothin’
Posted by on 12/17 at 08:01 PMthe city would have to get itself an NHL franchise before I would consider holding the MLA convention there.
Oh, very droll.
ACORN is like an Illuminati/Freemason/ACLU/Cosa Nostra combo.
ACLU
Cosa Nostra
Ordinary of the Mass
Rosicrucian
Novus ordo seclorum...Hmm, Peter K. is on to something.
Posted by on 12/17 at 09:22 PMWhat a boon for the profession! Congratulations (both to you and to the rest of us who will benefit from your expert piloting of that giant spaceship that is the MLA!).
Posted by on 12/18 at 03:08 PMBelated congratulations! Glad to see you have decided to ixnay on the old icago-Chay.
Posted by on 12/20 at 10:48 PMhot water and salt is the way to go
Posted by Budget Van Lines on 01/22 at 03:27 PMCongratulations.. We will be watching over the changes that you can render.. And btw, drink a lot of water everyday.. and have enough rest..
Posted by Riu Resorts and Hotels on 02/10 at 12:12 PMCongratulations.. Have a long rest, that would surely help.
Posted by Photo Lighting Equipment on 02/16 at 10:49 AMOne kinda serious question: Will you be able to put disability and Disability Studies more prominently on everyone’s radar? I think the MLA tries to accommodate people with disabilities, but the membership could really use a kick-in-the- pants to get them to teach about disability.
Posted by Energy on 02/23 at 03:05 PMActually I kinda feel what you are feeling. I think I also need a good rest and dring plenty of water.
Posted by Make a Promise on 03/29 at 10:14 AM
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