A Justice Site
Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP - Archives
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: October 30, 2003
Latest Update: October 30, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
The Book: What Book?
Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, October 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.
Francisco said on Thursday night, "jeanne, you have to right a book before you retire."Excuse me?
You have to write a book before you retire.
Francisco, I retired two years ago.
No, before you really retire.
You mean like A Book of Practice? The theory for what we're doing? We put up the first draft on this week's journal issue.
No, no. You have to write a book.
About what?
About your thirty years of teaching here.
Silence for a few seconds, as we all digested that.
You mean you want to know how our social system research center started out as three field studies classes in the back halls of SBS with coding at a little kid's table in the hall?
You mean I have to write about those first years when I planted my feet in the patio and knew that that was the only way I could hold the world still with those hundred Saturday students rushing all around me?
You mean that some of us have to go back and tell the story of how Carol and I and Sandy and Sandy's husband occupied the college with a child care center and Gary Colboth came to arrest us and Vic (Sandy's husbands) read us our rights in Spanish while Gary tried to read them in English?
You mean that some of us have to go back and tell you how Moot Court and Dear Habermas started and how we threatened to occupy the parking meters when they wouldn't allow free parking for Derrick Bell's Presiding over Moot Court?
You mean I have to tell you that Derrick Bell told me I drove my Rolls Royce the way his daddy drove a garbage truck? I was driving him to the only restaurant we knew that would serve us after 10 p.m. when he finished autographing Faces at the Bottom of the Well. And when we got to the restaurant Arnold heartily agreed with him that I drove the Rolls Royce like a garbage truck? You mean you'd like to know more about your college than received history?
What a wonderful idea, Francisco! I know, I could fit it in between 3 and 4 a.m. on Tuesdays and Saturdays! Just kidding.
Give me a few minutes to think about this . . .
Well, first of all, the probelm with received history is that it's written by or at the behest of those in power. That may be just a tiny power at a small school like this, but it is none the less official power. If I wrote about the history of CSUDH as I recall it, it would undoubtedly be funny, and probably very different from received history. I would remember that we created a research center to allow our kids the possiblity for gaining administrative skills that could get them promoted on the job, and the government called that a sociology methods class, and they tried to give us a methodology test to see if we were successful? Hello? Answerability?
I would recall the Washington consultant who came to visit us to evaluate our program, and spent the day we paid for sailing in San Diego Bay. I would recall the next evening when Arnold and I took him to a Malibu restaurant, and Arnold, as is his nature, studied the bill carefully before he paid it. (In those days he wasn't married to me yet, so he still had enough money to pay for dinner in a Malibu restaurant.) As Arnold scanned the bill, Irwin asked if Arnold would like to borrow his glasses. "No thank you," murmured Arnold, distractedly, never noticing the insult. Of course, Irwin was receiving a dinner allowance on our center grant. Corruption didn't start at Enron. It started with little things like sailing at the grant's expense, and accepting dinners covered by your allowance. But it's OK. Arnold got even when we went to the ASA meetings in New York and met Irwin at the reception for us at the hotel. Irwin commented on how trapped he must feel since he'd married me (we were on our honeymoon), and Arnold replied enthusiastically, "Oh, no. I insist upon the freedom to go out when and with whom I choose." There was a rumor circulating that if Irwing was in a room, I'd drive him up a wall, and if I wasnt' there, the research center staff would do it for me. The reception was in honor of the research center's grant, so we were all there.
Now, are those the scrapbook memories you're asking about, Francisco?
To write that book, we'd have to duplicate the alumni study we're doing for sociology. We'd have to search for all those people to share their memories. Mine get hazy, and mine are selective. But I think a collective history, starting now, with each of you sharing your memories of what CSUDH has been to us would be a delightful response to received history. The more I think about it, the more I'd be willing to buy such a history to read and recall all the crazy delightful insane moments of my life at CSUDH. You're right. I've had a crazy thirty years here, and ever so many people have shared it with me.
Gee, and we do art, and even music. We could burn a CD.
Is that what you had in mind, Francisco?
Interesting idea. Definitely of the Naked Space. jeanne