Stressed

The day of judgment is upon us. The "us" I refer to is my phd cohort at WLU/Waterloo in Religious Diversity in North America. Tomorrow we write our general comprehensive exam. I'm a bit of a wreck. I've been reading too late at night which gives me these academic dreams. I wake up at five or so and realize that I've been thinking about say the plethora of names in Prebish & Baumann's Westward Dharma: Buddhism beyond Asia anthology.

I'm beginning to forget that which I have already put to memory. I've already studied these books sufficiently, say Casanova's Public Religions in the Modern World, and now my mind is rearranging his argument. I have a tendency to forget the shortcomings of a book. I like to idealize the texts I've read. I think it has something to do with managing cognitive dissonance. If I like part of an argument, I begin to intentionally "forget" those elements that I don't find harmonious. It's like purgatory.

The other thing I've been thinking about is conferences in May. There are three that I want to attend. The first one is The Atlantic Canadian Studies Conference in Halifax on May 3-5. The topic is "knowledge in action" which seems like a title dreamed up by someone who is ignorant of Foucault and Said. I've submitted an abstract on the Catholic imaginary in Ann-Marie MacDonald and David Adams Richards. These are two of the authors I am working on in my thesis, and so my work will be productive. Second conference I want to apply to is the regional AAR in at U Waterloo held on the same weekend. The paper I want to deliver is on secular theology in "indie" music with a glance at the cultural habitus, and subjectivity of ipod users (and the subgroup of "indie" music listeners). The songs I have in mind are 1) "Saint Simon" by the shins, which uses a Zizekian model of subjectivity to talk about an encounter with the sublime; 2) "We are no where and it's now" by Bright Eyes, which addresses the problem of place in a imaginary that has disavowed God; 3)"Ocean Breathes Salty" by Modest Mouse, which uses an image of an earthy Eucharist (Ocean Breaths Salty want to carry you in in my head in my heart in my soul) yet ends on a faithless note. I'm captivated by the God talk in this secular space, and I'm also interested in the social-cultural impact that the ipod has had. I think the ipod makes hyper-subjective communities that are a mix of private and public - perhaps priblic, or pubvate, in that one purchases music, is part of some imagined community of listeners, and has no contact with them what so ever, except at a concert. Also, this public commodity reshapes the internal realm and becomes a type of language that expresses one's interiority: note song lists on myspace (yes I've fallen for this trick). Anyway, if I can't present this at the AAR, which is likely, I'll try to submit it to the CSSR in Saskatchewan, May 27-30, though my wife wants me to be at her cousin's wedding in Colorado that weekend. My poor beautiful idea of secular theology may go to waste. It's sad isn't it...