(You didn’t think my only contribution today would be about Freud’s bris, did you?)
This is an interesting article about how blogging can keep you from writing. Unfortunately I don’t have time to blog about it right now because I have to read DH Lawrence’s Fantasia of the Unconscious. I, for one, am still laboring under the delusion that I can Do It All: read, write, blog, live. Keep reading to know how it all turns out.
If you’re near midtown Manhattan on the evening of May 10th, I strongly suggest checking out this event. Would that I could be there myself! It’s a real milestone in the evolution of American academe.
The New York Public Library
Humanities and Social Sciences Library
Dorot Jewish Division
presents
FREUD’S FORESKIN
A sesquicentennial celebration of the most suggestive circumcision in history
7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Wednesday May 10, 2006
South Court Auditorium, Humanities and Social Sciences Library
Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
The Joy Gottesman Ungerleider Lecture
this year takes the form of four short presentations and a conversation at the intersection of Jewish identity, psychoanalysis, and minor surgery.
There are many reasons for conferences, but the 150th anniversary of Freud’sbrisis the most novel I’ve come across yet.
–John Efron, Koret Professor of Jewish History, University of California, Berkeley
Circumcision in Freud’s Context: The State of the Art, 1856-1939
Circumcision—its meaning and value—was a matter for fierce and widespread debate, among Jews and others, in late-19th and early 20th century, in Central Europe especially. What were the issues and why did circumcision become the ritual around which discussions about the nature of Jewish identity revolved?
ROBIN JUDD is Assistant Professor of History at The Ohio State University. Her book, Cutting Identities: Jewish Rituals and German Politics, is forthcoming from Cornell University Press.
Psychoanalyzing Phallacies: Freud and Current Circumcision Controversies
This Freudian perspective, focusing on circumcision as symbolic of social, erotic, and cultural loss, uses Freud to analyze those who use Freud to critique the procedure.
ERIC KLINE SILVERMAN is Edward Myers Dolan Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Jewish Studies at DePauw University. His first book, Masculinity, Motherhood, and Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture and the Iatmul Naven Rite in New Guinea, was published in 2001, and his next, From Abraham to America: A History of Jewish Circumcision, is due out in June.
Little Hans: A Footnote in the History of Circumcision
In an aside in his case history of “Little Hans,” Freud locates the root of antisemitism in an unconscious dread of the sight of the circumcised penis—symbol par excellence of the castration complex. How does this startling claim relate to the rest of Freud’s oeuvre and to his contemporaries’ assessments of the ethnic, sexual, and gender identities of Jews?
JAY GELLER is Senior Lecturer in Modern Jewish Culture in the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University. His book, Mitigating Circumcisions: Judentum and the Construction of Freud’s Corpus, is forthcoming from Fordham University Press.
Circumcised Supremacy: Freud’s Final Cut
In Moses and Monotheism, Freud finds in this “holy mark” in the flesh the key to the peculiar Jewish identification with the incorporeal realms of the mind and spirit.
ELIZA SLAVET is a member of the Interdisciplinary Faculty at New York University’s Gallatin School, and a doctoral candidate in Cultural Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her dissertation, Freud’s Moses: Memory Material and Immaterial, focuses on Freud’s controversial belief in the biological inheritance of memory and his formulation of a “theory of Jewishness.”
This event is free and open to the public.
This program is made possible by the Dorot Foundation as part of its support for The New York Public Library’s Dorot Jewish Division.
Well, we’re back. The New York Times would have told me if my alarm clock hadn’t already done so at 7 this morning, when it chirped its little chirp, ignorant and uncaring that it was the first time it had been set that early since before the strikes, somewhere around two months ago. I dutifully arose, switched on the coffee maker, stumbled into clothing, filled up my Mediabistro travel mug with java, patted the dog on the head and went out the door, ready once again to teach the French that they go on holiday and not in holiday and that they go to the movies and not in cinema.
But to my surprise, I have found today that I don’t mind coming back to school at all! My students are all really cool, and I was glad to get back to some semblance of a schedule– particularly in light of the fact that hext Monday is a holiday, as is the Monday after that, as is the 25th, and also the 5th of June… and I’ll be in Corsica May 20-24, meeting the woman whose loins gave forth to my boyfriend, and in NY May 29-June 8, with the woman whose loins gave forth to me. So really, teaching is just kind of a hobby I try to squeeze in between strikes I’m not a part of, religious holidays I don’t celebrate, and vacations I really shouldn’t be taking given that the semester, originally ending May 26th, is being stretched til June 10.
But whatever.
One of the warm-up exercises I’ve asked my students to do at the beginning of each class today has been to tell me what they did during their two months off from school. But when they turned the question around on me… I had no idea! I read a whole lot of DH Lawrence. I gave a seder and went to another seder. I did not keep kosher for Passover despite buying 15 euros worth of matzoh in the hope that I would. I blogged a little and wrote a lot and progressed on a couple of different personal projects. I went to bad French movies with Nicolas and good American movies with Remy. And best of all, my family was in town last week.
Still, though, all play and no work makes Lauren an undisciplined girl. So lay it on me: five more weeks of working a part-time job part-time. I think I can handle that.
Happy Passover! Well, for the second time in my life I led my own seder last night, replete with alternative haggadah, orange on the seder plate and illegal rice (Sephardim are allowed rice on Pesach, Ashkenazim are not). It’s not your mother’s seder, but it does the trick.
You might recall last year I went a little loony and threw a doosy of a seder for twenty. We gathererd in my living room, Jews and non-Jews, Sephardim and Ashkenazim, girls and boys, gay and straight, friends and lovers, vegetarian, vegan, carnivorous, pescatarian, and flexatarian, and a joyous time was had by all. Except that I was stressed beyond oblivion and shortly afterward I found myself shouting at my (now ex-) best friend on the metro and spent the rest of the night in tears for that and various other reasons. I was conflicted last year, between being overwhelmed at the sheer number of people in my house, and overwhelmed at the absence of people who ought to have been in my house and who weren’t, through my own doing and through the whims of fate.
After that I made a resolution and a wish. Though when we concluded the seder we said "Leshana haba’a bi’yirushalayim," "Next year in Jerusalem," I was pretty certain that the next year would also occur in my living room in Paris. I just wasn’t sure, watching all my American friends go back to the States, who would be at my seder table. I resolved, then, to keep the number of guests down, so that I might relax the way we’re supposed to on Passover (because though we might be free from Pharoah, we are not free from the obligations of hospitality). And my wish? I wished to have fewer absences in the crowd. My ideal was not Jerusalem for this year. It was just to be at home in Paris.
And so I was delighted to be surrounded by wonderful friends last night, who boasted a pleasing symmetry: three girls, three boys; three Jews, three Gentiles; three French, three American. Everyone got on well; even when Nicolas and Frédérique argued over colonialism, they assured us it was one of those French debates for the sake of debating: nothing personal (cf. my post on "Fighting French!").
Our seder was not as brief as this one, but it was just as "heretical," according to one of my guests. Irreverent, I like to think. As we made our way out of the desert and through the Red Sea, we got progressively more and more plastered (is that why we drink red wine, I wonder?), Remy made it through the Four Questions with panache, our rendition of "Dayenu" brought the house down, and Remy’s boyfriend showed up from work just in time for the Aubergine Gratin, which was a stunning success, if I do say so myself.
By the time we got to the end of the seder and we proclaimed "Next year in Jerusalem!" Nicolas squeezed my knee and said "How about next month in Jerusalem?" I looked at him, who had been by my side during the seder, who had played along by the crazy rules, who had shyly pronounced "dayenu" at the end of every phrase, who had come here to be with me, and no matter how burned I’ve been in the last year, no matter how much I had been let down, I dared to hope last year’s wish had come true.
One of the perks of living in France is that you get exposed to American pop culture in much smaller doses that you do, say, living in an apartment on the Upper East Side with subscriptions to the New York Post, New York Magazine, the New Yorker, and Tivo (Actually, I’m a little nostalgic for the last few items on the list). Believe it or not, I used to be fairly in the know!! but over the last two years I’ve found I can no longer quote the Queer Eyes by heart, I don’t know who Ashton Kutcher is Punking these days, and I have no idea who half the actors are in the American movies we get over here. I’m free from the barrage of must-knows and must-haves, and though I went through a slight period of withdrawal at the beginning, now I just feel much more peaceful.
Every time I fly home, whn I get off the plane at JFK and stand in that line waiting to get through passport control, they always have a bunch of TVs hanging from the ceiling, all turned to CNN or Fox News, and I stare at them gape-mouthed as I wind my way through the line, amazed at all the colors and moving pictures and the scroll-thingy at the bottom. It takes a real thirty seconds or so of adjustment before I slip back into my old "savvy New Yorker" skin, and it usually takes several days before I stop saying "Pardon, excusez-moi" when I bump into someone, and a few more days before I stop saying anything at all (we New Yorkers are far ruder than the French in this respect, it’s true!).
One of the downsides of being out of the US is that I really do miss certain aspects of our culture– for example, certain television shows. Listen to this: I’ve been out of the country for the entire duration of the Desperate Housewives obsession. I’ve never seen an episode in my life! I don’t know who these women are, or why they’re so desperate! I’ve never seen Grey’s Anatomy, though it does sound like a hoot! and worst of all, there’s a new season of 24 and The Sopranos and I’m missing them! The agony!
For awhile there I was catching episodes of Gilmore Girls by downloading fuzzy episodes on Limewire. I’ve stopped doing that, though, because of the questionable quality and, um, legality. My old roommate Rémy [not to be confused with friend Remy] got me into Lost through his downloaded episodes from seasons one and two. But he moved out right after Shannon got killed and I’ve been in limbo every since.
However, I have just discovered to my unending joy that you can now download television shows on iTunes! It’s two bucks an episode but who cares! it’s legal! and the quality is good! and now there’s always something to watch on my computer, anywhere there’s wifi access! I’ve been sick in bed all week, but I haven’t minded because I’ve caught up on Lost! I’m right there with you, USA!
So now, I’ve turned my attention to Desperate Housewives on iTunes. I’m going to start watching them this weekend with a friend who has the DVD box set, but I’ll probably need to watch a few on my own… and guess what I’ve learned.
All of the titles of the episodes are taken from Stephen Sondheim songs. Ok, not all, but most: "Pretty Little Picture," "Anything You Can Do," "Move On," "Every Day a Little Death," "Your Fault," "The Ladies Who Lunch," "There Won’t Be Trumpets," "Children Will Listen," "Live Alone and Like It," "Fear No More" (from the quite obscrure The Frogs!) and my favorite, as you well know– "Sunday in the Park With George."
Oh my god. Writers of Housewives, I salute you. From across the pond, you have won my allegiance. Can’t wait to start downloading!
It was Monday, March 27th, just after 7 p.m., and in the streets and in the cafes, the inhabitants of Paris exalted at the arrival of spring weather, the setting forward of the clocks, the first illuminated evening we’d seen since October. It was plain to see: from the Parisians shedding their top layers to the good-natured waiter in the place Saint Sulpice, from the man on the parked scooter embracing the woman in the short tight skirt, to my messy topknot and sunglasses propped jauntily up on my head: everyone was happier than any of us had been in six months.
Remy and I strolled into Les Editeurs to meet Jessica for a drink, and there she was. Not our petite blonde American girlfriend, but a petite blonde Frenchwoman clad entirely in purple: purple blazer, purple chemise, purple pants, purple bag, and even, when she left the café and we watched her cross the Carrefour de l’Odéon, bright purple socks.
And la pièce de résistance: her hair. A swirled, hairsprayed concoction of springtime joy, it was the shape that the color purple would take if it were to take shape.
It had a life of its own; it was a work of art. The picture I furtively snapped does not do it justice.
She had a manuscript in front of her and worked diligently correcting it, occasionally raising her eyes up in front of her and pursing her lips (see above). I tried to imagine what she was working on and why, and finally decided she had to be a romance novelist. I think she was correcting the draft of Elle ne connaissait pas son nom or Bras de fer, bras d’amour. Any other guesses?
I knew it was coming, but I didn’t think it would be so soon: remember my flighty Italian roommate who looked like she was going to move out in January, three weeks after moving in?
Well, a few days ago she informed me that she’s moving out at the end of June. She’s going back to Venice for the summer, and she doesn’t know if she’ll be coming back to Paris in September.
And best of all, the rental agency doesn’t want to do another (a fourth) lease with me in this apartment. So it’s definite: I’m moving. And you know what? I couldn’t be happier! I’m overjoyed at the idea of getting my own place, at no longer having to deal with roommates and their sudden decisions to move out. Witness the three roommates I’ve had in this apartment in the last year alone. Roommate #1: "I’m moving in with my boyfriend!" Since we definitely were badly matched as roommates, and are much better suited as friends, I found it hard to hide my enthusiasm at her departure. Roommate #2, four months after moving in: "I got a job in Morocco!" This was sad, as he was really cool, hardly ever home, and when he was we got on well, and all the furniture in the apartment belonged to him. However, as he couldn’t take his stuff with him to Morocco, I ended up buying most of it from him and he gave me a really good deal. Roommate #3: great to live with, but in spite of the fact that I told her when I interviewed her that my two major stipulations in letting her move in was 1) that she stay for at least a year and 2) that she be cool with my dog, who barks and runs around and despite being teeny-tiny is very hard to miss, she has proven incapable of holding fast to the first condition. "Roommates come and go," she tells me. "No one wants to stay in colocation for long."
Well– she’s right on that point. But it is so very annoying to move in France that you’d think they’d stay longer. In the case of this apartment, the rental agency has insisted on redoing the lease in both renters’ names each time. And each time I’ve had to redo my caution bancaire (since I don’t have a French guarantor). And each time the guy has to come to do the Etat des lieux and by the third time I think he thought I was doing it on purpose just to get him alone in my apartment (he is very cute, it must be said).
So in my experience, roommates=annoyance. Living alone=higher utilities bills, higher rent, smaller space, but peace of mind.
There’s one other possible living arrangement but I think it’s probably too soon to talk about it. Maybe by the end of May, when I actually start looking for apartments… and then maybe this is a different post, for a different day.
In the meantime, if you hear of a decent studio or 2 pièces that will be opening up at the end of June, anywhere in Paris, please let me know.