Overworked 3
I do think we are helping each other become more clear about this question of
overwork. By working together we can also help each other slow down and create a
different rhythm determined by our different schedules and even the time
differences between us. I find myself reflecting a lot between the times that we
send our writing to each other, and I wonder what you are thinking and doing and
meanwhile I find something else to do. So working with you through the virtual
media is actually affecting my daily routine in good ways. I am waiting for your
reply, and meanwhile I am breathing, listening, reflecting.
Faith: So, to comment on your three points, I feel always outside of the
“legitimate” academic world because I teach in an art school and I did not
really train to be an artist. And I never wanted to be a tenured professor and
belong to an institution. But now I am here in Chicago and I’m doing it mostly
because I need to support myself and I am alone and getting older. I do not feel
subaltern, but I do feel that my “career” trajectory has been a very fragmented
one - however, it has been guided by my choices and I have no regrets about it.
I’ve always been ambitious, even as a small child, though it was very much
punished in how I grew up. Now I am ambitious for my work, for the work of my
collective, to have a platform from which to speak and to work, and to do work
that will somehow make a difference. I don’t care about an art career in the
usual sense because I don’t really have to. I have somehow managed to get much
of the access that I want because I have published, lectured, performed,
traveled so much. Of course I did not get rich, but I don’t care about that
because my teaching work supports me and I love it. I still feel a lot of
competition and comparison to males (for example, I compare myself to careers of
those men I went through graduate school with) but that is not my main
motivation really. If anything, my motivation is political; I am driven by the
desire to continue to explore and teach about feminism and the different ways in
which cyberculture, media culture, global labor conditions, and sexual
difference are deeply affecting and conditioning our lives. I feel a mission to
speak in the world about these issues. There is so much work to be done.
