I Can’t Go Back to Austin Anymore…

In the 1970s Texas legend Doug Sahm wrote a song by the above title…It appeared on The Return of Wayne Douglas album…I always thought it would be a great name for a radio program dedicated to Texas singer-songwriters…At any rate, this title comes back to the forefront of my mind as tomorrow I am heading for Austin, Texas for the Society for American Archeology meetings…I left Austin in 2003, I’ve returned only briefly tograduate in 2004….It’s been almost 5 years since I’ve been back to Austin…and I have mixed feelings.Don’t get me wrong…I LOVE the town and feel that I had the academic and cultural “time of my life” there

…the program was exciting and inspiring, the music scene was great, the food can’t be beat (I DID have problems with the weather & traffic however.

T.J. & I on south First Street in Austin, Texas in 1999.

But going back to Austin for a conference somehow feels weird…T.J. will be meeting me down there (It will be the first time I’ve seen my wife in a month as we are currently living on opposite sides of the state)… so combine that with the conference being in a town I once called “home” and it makes for an experience decidedly at odds with my usual conference behavior.

You see…I’m one of those “go to every paper, go to every happy hour” kind of conference goers…I feel cool stuff is being said in the papers and cool stuff is being said in the bars afterwards & I don’t want to miss a thing! Unfortunately, that means I often do not leave the conference hotel (…ask Davidson..he’ll confirm my story).

Well…This will not be the case at this year’s SAAs as I get to e with my wife and hang out in the town that we both loved…get to go to the old haunts, the old eateries…

Yet…I still feel those pangs of responsibilities calling me to the conference sessions….”Come hear about the engendered archeology of the nineteenth-century Midwest” it calls …or “You NEED to hear that paper on public engagement“…

I’ll let you know if I find the happy medium…wish me luck.

The Museum of Ephemerata

After news of John’s successful prospectus defense, I was feeling all nostalgic for Austin, Texas…So I was browsing The Austinist (a website about Austin) and came across a blurb on MachinesMimesis (TM), a walk-thru musical installation event at the Cathedral of Junk held late in January (click on the image for a larger view of the poster). It was presented by the curators of the Museum of Ephemerata–Scott Webel and Jen Hirt. These folks are old friends from UT (via the the Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies) and I had no idea that 1) they were still in Austin and 2) they were continuing their great work with the Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephermerata. If you have never come across their work, check it out….I noticed the following advert under current projects …

The Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata

is currently developing our next novelty exhibition

MACHINES….

REPRODUCING that constellation of OBJECTS heretofore known as MODERNITY!

NO CHILD SHOULD MISS the March 11, 2006, GRAND OPENING of the Machines exhibition,7-10pm at the Museum’s new facility on Austin’s east side!

Academic Hubris

My wife is currently enrolled in an upper division “Social Theory” course in Sociology. The book used for this course ends with a four page self-indulgent rant about the book’s author and the important “grand theories” he has provided to the discipline. This rant takes up more space than the text devoted to Walter Benjamin or any single feminist theorist!

Now, don’t get me wrong. . . I can be as self-indulgent and the next person (I mean, I AM writing a blog, eh?). But one should not go around trumpeting one’s own contributions as if they were the word handed down from on high. . . it’s bad form. . . You should at least have your graduate students do that sort of thing for you

At any rate, I’ve been noticing this sort of behavior often lately at conferences and the like. My own colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin recently held a symposium on “The Austin School” of political engagement at a recent AAA meeting. I have all of the respect in the world for these colleagues (I mean I REALLY admire many of their works), but I just think that you don’t proclaim yourself “a school” (like the Frankfurt School or the Chicago School), that’s something that OTHER PEOPLE proclaim once your contributions to methodology or theoretical positioning have been recognized. . . Otherwise (I think ) you just look like you have delusions of grandeur.

maybe I’m just too southern. . . .(I’ll knock that stereotype down later).

jamie