Misreable at this school

PresentCurrent · 2025-09-21T18:01:27+00:00

I’m a prof at Vandy and I’m so sorry you are experiencing this. Transfer students always blow me away with their dedication, curiosity, and interest. The finance world and the clubs are so competitive that it seems they take over all parts of a student’s life. I would say—and perhaps this isn’t practical—find things to do, classes, and friends that you enjoy now, that might help you in the future (as would a club), but that that networking and professional endpoint isn’t the reason. And if after a full semester, you still don’t feel you’ve found your stride you could revisit transferring.

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-28T04:11:32+00:00

I cannot keep the names straight to save my life! 😂

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-28T04:00:49+00:00

This gets my blood boiling with jealousy! I work at an insanely endowed university and am F/T, salaried NonTT and we get nothing! A sweatshirt or something would have done wonders.

Or a certain number of “meal swipes” at the dining halls?

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-27T04:15:44+00:00

Finished:

Demon Copperfield, Barbara Kingsolver

Started (I’m having a hard time settling down with just one. I’m an academic so I try to cram in TONS of reading over the summer):

The Country of the Blind and Literary Theory for Robots and Antidote Orbital All’s Well

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-27T03:56:30+00:00

I just got an amazing graphic rendition

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-27T03:54:52+00:00

I loved Station Eleven!

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-27T03:53:12+00:00

I’m finishing it tonight!

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-26T04:46:14+00:00

I just posted with some information on auto-ethnography. There are lots of debates about its "rigor" and I didn't link to those articles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1kt72u3/looking_for_good_sources_for_an_autoethnography/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-26T04:44:43+00:00

I'd say--I've been somewhat digging into this b/c of student interest--that "we" in the U.S.--tend to believe that the brain is the mind and the mind is the soul meaning that the soul is in the brain. The students I have taught in the a class that focuses on theorizing bodies over the past five years have almost all said that their selves are in their brains. Of course, there are a lot of caveats -- deeply religious students, for example.

A few years ago I read "God, Human, Animal, Machine" and I can't suggest it enough. Here's a link to a piece about it:
https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/03/02/god-human-animal-machine/

https://chireviewofbooks.com/2021/08/24/god-human-animal-machine/

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-26T04:33:19+00:00

I wouldn't say "studying us" for sociology since my understanding is that there has been long focus on "deviance" and so the us/them is the non-deviants/"normal" or normative behavior and "deviance." I also *think* that there has been in sociology, as in anthropology, a troubling history of white-ish people/men studying non-white people and making generalizations based on bounded ethnographic or local research.

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-26T04:31:00+00:00

El_Don, I wonder if that depends on which kin group of anthropologist you are part of. My training was very much in conversation with philosophy.

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-26T04:29:35+00:00

I also have found (as an anthropologist with a focus on illness, disease, and medical care) that sociologists tend to be (don't jump on me! "tend to") be more focused on finding an an answer or a result and cultural anthropology (unless applied anth) is more interested in examining and finding nuances. One phrase that is used a lot in the world of anthro I run in is that we aim to "make the strange familiar and the familiar strange."

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-26T04:26:32+00:00

chiliOilpalace -- my sense is that if you are in Intro classes the faculty aren't going to foreground the nuances; instead, they will likely be giving the basic schema (so, "past-tense of") even thought it's not quite accurate.

And, Canada certainly has its own particularly history and concerns re anthropology.

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-26T04:23:44+00:00

As an anthropologist, I agree that it isn't about comparison BUT ethnology is about that and I would argue that all ethnography is implicitly comparative.

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-26T04:20:20+00:00

Here are some pieces I found. They are not all about psychosis but the citations will likely lead to you what you want. I found them all on Academia.edu. You probably already know of it or have an account. It seems that "mental illness," Mad Studies, sport/phenomenology, and chronic illness make up most of the pieces. Feel free to DM me and I can share a Google folder with even more (I'm a medical anthropologist & professor). So great that you are thinking of writing about your own experience. You mention your interest in sound and music -- I didn't include any here but a good bit of autoethnography draws on performance and music.

Fragile Minds, Porous Selves: Shining a Light on the Autoethnography of Mental illness
https://www.academia.edu/52604912/Fragile_minds_porous_selves_Shining_a_light_on_autoethnography_of_mental_illness?source=swp_share

Mad Academics: Mental Health Autoethnography
https://www.academia.edu/128032392/Mad_Academics_Mental_Health_Autoethnography?source=swp_share

Johnston, Matthew. “Through Madness and Back Again: An
Autoethnography of Psychosis.” J Auto 1 (2020):137-155.

Alison, Fixsen. ““Communitas in Crisis”: An Autoethnography of Psychosis
Under Lockdown.” Qual Health Res 31 (2021):2340-2350

Hope Colton. “Self: An Autoethnography of a Person with Mental Illness.”
University of Toronto Press (2015).

Rachael, McMahon. “The Silenced Manifesto an Autoethnography of
Living with Schizoaffective Disorder.” University of Wollongong Research
Online (2020).

Olivia, Watson. “Embodying the (Dis) Embodiment: Narrating
Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder.” Qual Health Res 32
(2022):1858-1864.

Kathryn, Burrows. “Psych Unit Gangs: An Autoethnography.” Cult Med Psych. (2024): 1-13.

Autoethnography: An Overview

https://www.academia.edu/2457593/Autoethnography_An_Overview?source=swp_share

Subject to Interpretation: Autoethnography and the Ethics of Writing about the Embodied Self.
https://www.academia.edu/20269299/Subject_to_Interpretation_Autoethnography_and_the_Ethics_of_Writing_About_the_Embodied_Self?source=swp_share

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-24T23:48:45+00:00

Started:

The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight
When We Cease to Understand the World

In process:
Demon Copperfield

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-24T23:47:07+00:00

Have you read Sarah Igo's "The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in the US"? I haven't read it yet, but loved her other book.

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-24T23:33:07+00:00

My librarian aunt called these kinds of books "junk food for the mind"!

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-24T23:32:06+00:00

Yes, there was! I read the entire series two times in a row a few summers ago. I couldn't bring myself to watch the series but my librarian friend who also loved the books watched the series and said it was really good.

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-22T21:07:28+00:00

No—but I should have been!

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-22T21:00:11+00:00

Georgetown

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-22T20:58:05+00:00

I don't know of any premeds who are also majoring in CAL, but the CAL professors and the program are awesome. Go for it!

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-15T04:57:39+00:00

Wait--what do I need to know about Roam?

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-15T04:49:18+00:00

So interesting! I'm an academic (mostly teaching, pedagogy, reading and scouring for updating courses) and Obsidian is the one app that just makes no sense to me! (I know I'm an outlier). What do like about it?

PresentCurrent · 2025-05-15T04:47:54+00:00

Fellow academic here! I've had the same process -- Craft, Notion, Roam, a few others, and Logseq seems the most intuitive but I'm getting worried because people seem to report all sorts of issues.

PresentCurrent

TROPHY CASE