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The organizers of the Vanderbilt Kleist Conference (April 2011) sent photos from the event as they try to pry the last manuscripts from delinquent scholars for the proceedings of the conference.
Images of myself often make me wonder about identity; and these were no exception.
Who am I in the context of painted koi, listening to a paper on Kleist? Who am I while reading a paper I have written? Who am I in an unaccustomed suit and tie?
Am I, in other words, who I appear to be? Am I the sum of what I'm thinking at the moment? Am I what I look like? Am I what I produce?
And if the latter is the case, then I'm as much the woodpile I stacked yesterday morning as I am the paper on "Erection as Assertion" that will be published next year.
I had just finished an article about Heinrich von Kleist's story the "Marquise von O. . ." and needed the critical editions of Schopenhauer, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Herder for the citations. Deadline for publication this coming Monday.
My choices? Drive to the University of Utah on a Friday afternoon and fight rush-hour traffic on the way home or drive across town to BYU.
Despite the fact that I get (psychological) hives when I step onto the campus where I taught for 11 years, largely a result of memories of academic freedom violations that drew a strong censure by the AAUP investigators Sam Rushforth and I and others invited to campus, I chose what seemed the easier option and headed down University Parkway toward BYU.
Big mistake!
Traffic slowed down near the BYU stadium and I slowed down too. Behind me I could see a car accelerating instead of slowing. I did the only thing I could: honked. It didn't help a bit. The other car crashed into me, knocking me into the car in front of me so hard that it hit the car in front of it.
It was a Mercury behind me. Its entire engine compartment was destroyed -- liquids leaking everywhere. My Subaru, built higher than the Mercury, took its damage underneath and throughout the frame.
Doors that won't open. Muffler mashed up against the frame. And when I finally drove away, trouble with the drive train.
Moral of this story: stay away from BYU.
