As a graduate student contemplating a future career in the academia, I have often found myself wondering about what constitutes the academic community that we imagine.  Not surprisingly then perhaps, I often find a special form of academic pleasure at participating in conferences, experiencing how gatherings of scholar provide the most visceral forms of apprehending the type of scholarly community that cluster around certain disciplinary fields.  At ASA, I witnessed practices of critical generosity shared by a group of scholars.  Through conversations in various formats, scholars were earnestly concerned about productively engaging questions of interdisciplinarity in the hopes of an American Studies geared toward the continual project of social justice.  Even at points of disagreement, scholars genuinely and politely debated about how changes could be made in disciplinary and institutional practices.  This community of American Studies scholars practiced a continual self-reflexivity and impulse toward cross-intellectual engagements, guarding against the production of violent knowledge forms that foreclose other epistemological possibilities.  I witnessed a community of scholars productively and sincerely engaged with questions toward disciplinarity and institutionality through exploring methodologies offered by science, the transnational, and the affective.

Accustomed to reading texts in which scholars seem intent on winning a competitive rivalry, I sincerely appreciate the atmosphere of the ASA as one keen on critical generosity and an engaged rethinking of disciplinary practices.  One of the most fascinating dynamics I witnessed occurred in the panel entitled “Early American Methodologies,” organized by fellow CUNY colleague Sari Altschuler and featuring our very own Duncan Faherty.  The discussion that ensued during the Q&A session exemplified a form of critical generosity and productiveness that I did not quite expect.  Taking on Duncan’s challenge to think about the “critical interregnum,” two decades of novels that are often neglected within Early Americanist discourses, passionate colleagues contemplated some of the forces shaping this silence.  One member of the audience asked whether such a phenomenon occurs not necessarily because of scholarly attachment but rather institutional necessity.  The papers opened up a very nuanced and insightful discussion about the parameters of Early America as an important time period of study.

Furthermore, as someone becomingly increasingly interested in questions of disability studies, I found Sari’s intervention especially moving.  Her exploration of disability in Early America not only beckons us to consider the historical genealogy of disability, but also emphasizes the need for a greater engagement with disability theories to interrogate the ableist assumptions embedded within American cultural and political development.  Particularly, Sari points to the centrality of orality and the problem that disability enabled, exposing the very artifice of American sociality and citizenry through the oral.  In future American Studies meetings, I hope that a greater of scholars will take up the call put forth by Sari and other scholars in disability studies to examine the ableist narratives that underwrite American history, culture, politics, and knowledge production.

Scholars demonstrated that academia is not dictated by a stone-faced seriousness.  Karen Tongson’s talk in “Affective Histories” spoke to the affective attachments and pleasures within our academic practices.  Speaking of fidelity as the formal ethics of disciplinarity, she animates questions of propriety that still loom over scholarship that puts pressure on the parameters of one’s field and dares to forge intimacies with the methods and objects of other methodologies.  And yet, this type of “infidelity” of interdisciplinarity speaks of a desire for something else.  The affective pleasures of this disciplinary infidelity that Karen Tongson performed excite me.  Taking these risky maneuvers invite us to allow questions to guide our research into as yet unimagined, queer openings.

As such, even institutionality itself might not be set in stone.  “Institutionalizing Gender: Movements in Feminism” provocatively engaged with questions that have preoccupied some of our seminar discussions, particularly those surrounding Roderick Ferguson’s scholarship.  Robyn Wiegman aimed to reframe discussions around the institution, however, encouraging us to instead think about the possibilities within institutionality.  She asked: can we give agency to absorption, as not “complicity” but a politics of negotiation?  How may community formation be an institutional building project?  On the practice of examining institutionality, Wiegman asks what does it mean to examine institutional history if the archive is exclusively a textual history?  Moreover, in response to a paper researching the state funding toward satellite campuses throughout the globe, Wiegman asks us to resist easy readings of imperialism by considering how the local spaces assert agency to thwart desires by the U.S. state department to directly guarantee its goals in these global spaces.

Almost two weeks have past and I still find it difficult to exactly articulate the impact that the ASA conference made on me.  I came to the ASA annual meeting not quite knowing what to expect and was both surprised and inspired to witness the forms of support, generosity, and genuine intellectual curiosity among the various scholars.  Increasingly incorporated into the institutional and administrative demands by academia—teaching, grading, coursework—I found myself turning to stone.  The conference, however, rekindled my passion for research and my motivation for continuing in this path.  It encouraged me to believe that some of the more romanticized hopes that I had of academia are actually in existence and practice.

I am inclined to think of the wonderful experience at the conference as a point of departure, an invitation to imagine what else is possible.  On the final day of the conference, having departed from Baltimore, I accompanied my dear friend to his lab at the National Institute of Health where he conducts basic science research in epigenetics.  Usually, the name of scholars who resonate with each of us is quite foreign and unfamiliar to the other.  A few months ago, I had forwarded him an article by Priscilla Wald.  Passionate in his conviction that cross-talk among fields of basic science, epidemiology, and public health is possible, he was fascinated by her scholarship across the science/humanities divide.  Still deep in the midst of a powerful experience, I was tripping over words as I unsuccessfully tried to convey to him the graceful power of Priscilla Wald’s presidential address.  Affectionately calling her “Priscilla,” he asked me about specifics, curious about the ways in which cells, a most basic object of study in the laboratory, came to open a discussion on stories, the role of the humanities, and the critical work of American studies.  He asked me if I wanted to see the infamous and immortal cells of interest.  I examined the intricate structure of HeLa cells through the circular vision, at once magnified and circumscribed by the lens of a microscope.  I was never quite able to imagine the possibilities of reaching across the science/humanities divide; now, I am excited to be part of a larger research community actively pursuing the possibilities for what has yet to be imagined.  This is only the beginning.

Two weeks ago I attended the American Studies Association (ASA) conference for the first time. It was also the first conference I attended where I did not have to present a paper. As a second-year student in the English PhD program who is still struggling through her coursework and first year of teaching, this was, needless to say, an incredible experience. Free from the pressures of having to prepare and give a presentation, I was able to take in the vibrant atmosphere and energy of the ASA conference and select the panels I wanted to visit with liberty. I had the opportunity to listen and participate in conversations about “Affective Histories, Critical Transformations,” “Queer Transnational Intimacies and Imaginaries,” “New Media and the Transformation of the Social,” among many others. However, the discussions that continue to resonate with me (and this is definitely spoken with a bit of bias) arose out of CUNY organized panels.

The Early American Matters Caucus on “Early American Methodologies,” organized by Sari Altschuler and Kandice Chuh’s panel on “What Constitutes ‘The Political’?” have sparked ongoing debates among close friends and colleagues, while also compelling me to reflect critically on my own research, illuminating new avenues for thought and exploration. For me, what these two incredibly diverse panels share in common is a dynamism, a desire to challenge conventional paradigms by pushing us to consider alternative frameworks for critical engagement, whether this takes the form of imagining new methodologies for Early American Studies or a re-conception of the “Political” itself.

Although my own research runs far afield from Early American interests, I was nevertheless captivated by what the panel had to offer. In particular, the intersections between Cristobal Silva’s paper on “Epidemiology and Early American Studies” and Altschuler’s own work on “Disability and Early America,” relying on “disease” and the study of diseased and disabled bodies as alternative methodologies for understanding the complex dynamics of the early national period were fascinating. They conveyed the tenuousness of bodies in global circuits, providing surprising insights and analyses that allowed me to perceive important linkages between the conditions of Early America and the contemporary context of globalization that I study. Their presentations have encouraged me to return with new vigor to a previous project that explores how burgeoning discourses on toxicity and the actual circulation of toxins in the global economy produce bodily vulnerabilities that nevertheless have the potential to generate different forms of relationalities across national and state boundaries. Altschuler’s assertion that the disabled body can be perceived as a “universality” that challenges every person’s status as “able-bodied,” even in the banal sense of “aging,” has definitely offered a different and unique perspective to my own work.

The other inspiring voice on this panel came from the Graduate Center’s own Duncan Faherty whose presentation on “Ugly Feelings: Affect, Canonicity, and American Literature 1800-1820” figured as a provocative call to consider neglected texts in Early American Studies, which experts in the field talk about, but never actually teach. The works that fall within what Faherty dubs the “inter-regnum” or “ugly” period in American literature are stories I have been fortunate enough to read in his classes both at Queens College and the GC, and I can vouch for the refreshing perspectives they offer on an era that is often identified in relation to a limited number of canonical texts. Faherty’s presentation, out of all those on the panel, probably provoked the most interesting debates during the Q&A session, which only attests to the force of his argument concerning the necessity of addressing the “ugly feelings” or discomfiting affects that often circulate around issues of canonicity, methodology and disciplinarity. For me, his presentation was particularly powerful, not only in terms of the content, but also in regards to the affect it stimulated, which created a public space for conversation about those issues we as scholars have most difficulty confronting alone. This is something I aspire to do in my future work, embodied in my own perverse desire to address radically negative issues, including betrayal, apocalypse and even questions of disciplinary death.

The panel “What Constitutes the ‘Political’?” moderated by Siobhan Somerville, with presentations from Samantha Pinto, Karen Shimakawa and Chuh herself, while vastly different from the Early American Matters Caucus, nevertheless achieved similar ends in creating a lively public forum for discussing politics within the immediate context of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement. Each presenter’s brief comments enabled the session to function as more of a conversation space than a traditional panel that was truly a pleasure to participate in. Some of the questions that were raised during that session continue to inform the way I read and register news about OWS. For instance, one of the most interesting debates we had concerned what happens when we de-center New York and Wall Street from the Occupy movement. Considering the unique positionality of the ASA conference in Baltimore and thinking about various manifestations of Occupy across the nation forced me to recognize the different iterations of the movement in a way that I would have been unable to in New York. This debate spurred further talk about what it would mean to go even further and contextualize Occupy Wall Street in relation to broader genealogies concerning the history of strikes and even the movement’s place in a globalized context. What genealogies should we claim and how would such genealogies alter our perception of the movement as a whole?

But what echoes most vividly in my mind is Chuh’s assertion that there is a feeling of the possibility “newness” that attaches to Occupy Wall Street in a truly compelling and fascinating way, which we do not yet have a language to describe. Perhaps this elusiveness is the source of the movement’s power and, consequently, a sense of potentiality is what we must continue to perpetuate. This comment has most directly pushed me to continue my current investigations into the possibility of imagining an alternative temporality for politics that refuses the constant deferral associated with futurity. Instead, I wonder if we can imagine not “space,” but “time” itself as operating in alterity. Furthermore, how might we reorient ourselves to recognize this alterity and does Occupy Wall Street offer us some answers to these difficult questions?

As a result, ASA has definitely given me a lot to think about and hopefully this post will continue to spark new conversations and debates. Attending the conference has been an invaluable experience, both intellectual and professional. In fact, establishing new ties with other students and faculty at ASA has already spurred new hopes and thoughts about putting together a panel for next year. Moving forward, I guess I have to think seriously about the kinds of contributions I can make to this vibrant academic community.