My travels re: Tucson

While a more grammatically-correct title would be "My travels in Tucson", I can't say that I really went anywhere inside the friendly, low-key city that hosted this year's Jane Austen Society of North America conference. However, getting there and back was interesting, as were some of my adventures at the lovely resort hotel. Herewith are the highlights:

Day 1: Getting there
Thurs., Oct. 26
Oversleeping yet again (yet again having set my alarm for p.m. instead of a.m.), I skipped breakfast and called a cab to the airport, where I ended up waiting an hour in line to check in. I flew, for the first time, United Express, which I'm guessing is United Airlines' economy line. Checking in last also meant being seated at the first row of coach/economy, which also meant that I had a front row seat for the gong show that was "first class" (if an economy flight could be said to have first class—they couldn't even afford a curtain to separate the two sections). One of the first-class passengers was on his way to Denver with a couple of friends for a sports weekend. He proceeded to get drunker and drunker as the two-hour flight progressed. While it started innocently enough with a couple of passengers ordering screwdrivers, I knew we were in trouble once they ran out of vodka and the flight attendants broke out the gin. Mr. Drunkard
started flirting with the two flight attendants (who, seriously, should have cut him off), repeatedly inviting them to dinner that night. At one point he also insisted that first class give a cheer for the economy passengers ("you guys are the best"). It was like being at a bar and watching some guy get louder and drunker, only I couldn't leave. The flight was even long enough for him to reach the "I love you guys" phase. I felt especially bad for the man sitting across the aisle from me, who was, I kid you not, a Catholic priest.
Despite a bad snowstorm in Denver (my first view of snow of the season), my connecting flight to Tucson was only marginally late, and I arrived at my very swanky hotel by 8 p.m. I met my roommate, Kathy, a lovely woman who likes to chat and gossip. JASNA conferences, incidentally, are attended by a mixture of academics and non-academics, though demographically delegates are predominantly female, white, and over the age of 40.

Day 2: Registration, Books, Talks, Stars
Fri., Oct. 27
The first official day of the conference began with my purchasing books and a replacement for the Jane Austen keychain I had broken and then lost. Had breakfast with my roommate, where we were joined by a Scottish woman who had relocated to the US post WWII (she was a warbride). As Kathy had warned me the night before, the older one gets, the more pills one takes. Kathy and Ruth both had to take a series of pills at breakfast; at one point Ruth looked over to Kathy and asked, "What pills do you have?"
When I registered in the morning, the man at the table saw my nametag and noticed that I was a speaker. He offered to check how many people had signed up to attend my talk (though we're not held to those choices) and the grand total was... eight. In a conference with at least 400 delegates (if not more). I had had eight people attend my talk at my last JASNA conference, in L.A. I had hoped for a slight improvement, and sullenly tried to resign myself to my unpopularity amongst the JASNA set.
It turns out that one of the members of the Tucson chapter of JASNA is a doctoral candidate in astronomy at Arizona State University. There's a key star-gazing scene in Mansfield Park, so as part of the conference activities, he presented a talk on Friday night about astronomy in the Regency era, showing us incredible photos of nebulas, space-related phenomena, and even the surface of Mars. From there, we repaired to a hotel parking lot, where two telescopes were set up. I got to see Uranus, the Andromeda galaxy, and the Orion nebula. It was very cool, and something I wouldn't normally get the chance to do.

Day 3: Academic heroes, conference highs
Sat., Oct. 28
The day started with a keynote address from my academic hero, Claudia L. Johnson. It was a fascinating talk that covered the objects displayed in the Chawton House Museum (Austen lived there for eight years) and then segued into a discussion of the objects found in the protagonist's room in Mansfield Park, the novel that was the conference theme. I had a chance to quickly say hello afterwards (after four others), where I noticed that Prof. Johnson is a little shorter than me. Who knew?
Meeting scholars you admire is a little odd, putting the face to a name that has taken on such great significance. It was also a little odd to notice that another prominent scholar in the field is a really terrible dresser, even by academic standards (and yes, that's saying a lot). Let's just say that powder-blue strappy heels were in play, and leave it at that. (Though, while I'm on this sartorial strain, I should add that I also saw a tall, thin, striking brunette wearing a tomato-red pantsuit, and pulling it off by virtue of her Southern accent. However, I then noticed that she was wearing brown socks with black loafers, and gave myself over to despair.)
I was scheduled to give my paper in the afternoon, the last set of talks of the conference. About twelve people showed up, which was a pleasant surprise. The talk itself concerned informal education and moral development in the novel, particularly how the themes of improvement (renovations), illness, and habits worked through questions of change and fundamental moral character. I knew it was going well when the audience would murmur after I read particularly telling quotations, and I had one collective chuckle when I claimed that Fanny Price, the heroine, was a science experiment of sorts. Afterwards, the talk elicited a lively Q&A session, with three people staying behind to chat further.
That night we had a reception before the banquet (and the dancing!). At the reception, I was called over by one of the organizers of the 2008 JASNA conference in Chicago. She had attended my talk and liked it so much that she insisted I submit a proposal for their conference. Fortunately for me, the 2008 conference theme is "Jane Austen's Legacy", which encompasses the film adaptations, collateral publications, sequels, biographies, etc. that I've been dying to work on. In short, I'm going to Chicago in two years and I'm going with a talk that will definitely get me an audience larger than eight people. Being head-hunted feels great.
The highlight of the banquet is, for me, always the dancing, which is done just like in the movies (English country dance workshops are held for those interested). Not everyone dances, but there are always enough couples for a good-sized ball, and though gentlemen are scarce, women just end up dancing with each other (echoes of gym class). Oh, yeah, and some people dress up in Regency-era costumes for the banquet, which was also a masquerade this year.

Miscellany:
• The hotel was a beautiful resort that delivered a free copy of the New York Times every morning. In addition to the TV in the main room, there was also a little, wall-mounted TV in the bathroom, beside the sink. As my roommate put it, "Americans really like their TV."
• What do Arizona and Saskatchewan have in common? Neither follows Daylight Savings Time.

Photos of the lovely Arizona scenery and party-goers are here.

At first I thought they meant Naomi...

If I were to tell you that Mount Royal College was about to establish the Klein Chair in Media Studies, which Klein would you think I was referring to?

From cbc.ca:

Calgary's Mount Royal College has received $2.5 million in anonymous donations to create a position in the name of the outgoing premier.

Next fall, the Centre for Communications Studies will have a Ralph Klein Chair in Media Studies, which will bring in experts in the field to teach and research.

And the first occupant of said position? Let's let the Acting Dean of the Centre for Communication Studies explain for himself:

"Who better to offer our students special insights, based on years of front-line experience in broadcasting, broadcast journalism, media relations and communications, than Ralph Klein himself," said Chikinda.

So let me get this straight: the premier who slashed funding to post-secondary education, who did nothing to restore it once Alberta was financially sound, and whose cuts are still affecting morale and the bottom line at PSE institutions will soon take up a position at a post-secondary institution. Not only that, but it will be in a field that he has not worked in for over a quarter of a century, and in a field that he was incredibly skilled at manipulating since he stopped working in it. Not only THAT, but the position was endowed by who knows which individuals in what smacks of an attempt to establish a legacy. Not only that, but in addition to having the position named after him, he gets to occupy it (and get paid for it!) as well, which is not the usual case with endowed chairs.

Endowed chairs are a highly desirable addition to any post-secondary institution because funding is completely external and therefore does not cut into the institution's bottom line. The irony is that the most-Honourable Mr. Klein's budget cuts created a situation where universities and colleges had to scramble for creative ways to work around low core funding, including competing for more endowed chairs. But how desperate are institutions that they would accept a position that sounds more like a joke than an actual line on a CV?

This makes me angry on so many levels I cannot even articulate it.

Edmonton Cold; Tucson Hot!

Stressed out trying to finish writing my conference paper and prepare for my trip to Tucson this weekend. Also dealing with having to be in Calgary for my grandfather's funeral on Monday. Thank god Westjet has great deals on their seasonal service to (and from) Phoenix. It's going to be interesting to pack for both Tucson and Calgary. Here's the forecast for Tucson for the weekend:


A weekend at a resort hotel in the desert sounds pretty good right about now.

Funniest movie ever?

Oh, dear God... how much do I want to see this movie?

Reverse snobbery reading

Tonight I attended a book reading with my friend Karine. It was for Mark Billingham, a British mystery author who has worked in television and as a stand-up comic. The reading was entertaining (though I wish he had actually read more instead of chatting with us), as was the question period. However, one of the women in the audience got rather defensive about people who read capital-B Books vs. those who read for enjoyment; she didn't see the point of struggling to get through a difficult book that critics have raved over. This attitude really frustrates me because I read (and often enjoy) those 'difficult' books. Moreover, just because I like reading 'difficult' books doesn't mean that I can't enjoy reading mystery novels, which I do. In fact, many academics are avid mystery readers.

I agree that intellectual elitism is a form of snobbery and that no one should be made to feel that what they like is inferior (and that they implicitly are also inferior). Conversely, though, I also believe that people who like thick tomes or obscure authors shouldn't be criticized for having different tastes. And finally, just because someone decides to not finish a novel because they don't immediately enjoy it, they shouldn't feel superior to people who do want to struggle through.

That said, I'll still likely never read The Da Vinci Code.

Embarrassment avoided?

One of the first negative things I noticed about my current apartment was that I could hear my neighbours having sex, which often woke me up in the morning (the ratio of morning to non-morning sex is about 1 to 1). For months I've thought it was my neighbours across the hall, with whom I share a wall. I had debated about whether to slip a note under the door (which I've done before, in another place) or to leave it alone. It got more awkward when said neighbours become the building managers in September and I had to deal with them regarding other issues in my unit. It is, after all, one thing to hear your neighbours having sex, and another thing to meet both neighbours and then be able to picture them having sex when you hear them. Ew.

This weekend, however, the manager neighbours went away for Thanksgiving and weren't due to return until today. Monday morning, I hear my neighbours again, only I know that the managers are supposed to be out of town. This is further supported by the four days' worth of Edmonton Journals piled up in front of their door. That's when I realize that the neighbours I've been hearing must live in the unit beneath mine and that I'm hearing them through the heating vents.

The good news: I'm relieved that it's not the neighbours I know; I only hope that I never meet my downstairs neighbours. I'm also glad I never slipped that note under the door. I mean, what if they were going through a dry spell, only to have a neighbour complain that their sex was too loud and ask them to quiet their coitus?

And having met them, well... they don't look the way that the sex sounds.

One for us.

After years of having friends quote studies that find that women with more education are less likely to marry, reading articles about how the percentage of female professors working in the Academy is still markedly less than the percentage of female grad students, and going through the debacle over that stupid Forbes.com article about marry a career woman, finally — FINALLY — some good news for women with PhDs, courtesy CTV.ca:

Apparently, educated women have more orgasms:

The survey, which interviewed more than 9,000 women, claims that higher levels of education and income are associated with a greater prevalence for orgasm among women.

Hee!