Ready. Set. Go!

Today begins a month of separation for J and I. I'm excited for her fellowship, and am looking forward to hearing about the research/interviews she conducts while in WV,VA, and KY. In the meantime, I'm trying to adjust and cope with the SILENCE of this big, old house. And, of course, figuring out how to keep an old hound dog occupied and not fixated on the fact that his favorite pal has flown the coop for a while. He seems anxious and nervous (never a good sign for Smith J), so I've tossed some football and done some brushing to keep him from nipping at my hands.

Seems like all of our old friends are keeping busy with their academic/scholarly research over the summer. I think phone calls and emails will help to keep some of us on task. I figure I'll go ahead and make a book order this evening and begin mapping out my chapters for this book project of mine. It helps keep me sane if I only think of this in small chunks--paper by paper--instead of a monstrous book that I must (absolutely MUST) complete. So, for those of you interested in my work, I'm planning to recover/recuperate a nationalist feminist project. Specifically, I aim to map out the trajectory of current feminist theory on transnationalism and the way this particular form of thinking has been used to understand the Philippines. Unfortunately, I believe most hot, trendy, feminist thinking these days has continued to obscure the structural inequality wrough by globalizing processes, ignored the vital role nationalist, anti-imperialist movements have and continue to play in the RP, and simply celebrate the exotic, Pinay/Pinoy identity. In short, what's currently in vogue these days is about as anti-revolutionary as you can get--and it's happening when the civil liberties of Filipinos in their homeland are being curtailed on a daily basis by a paranoid government hell bent on silencing any enemies (ie primarily those located on the Left) via murder and intimidation. It's really a scary and serious situation that requires an equally rigorous and serious analysis--not the fluff that is currently masquerading behind buzz words such as complexity and hybridity. This kind of thinking will more than likely get you tenure, but what impact does it really have on figuring out contemporary realities?