June 28, 2007

Today's favorite sentence is really a quote that sets up the argument for all of the empirical chapters in my dissertation - specifically the purpose of writing them the way I am. I happened to find it in my reading notes from March 2005...I guess it pays to procrastinate sometimes because if I hadn't been making an attempt to waste time productively then I wouldn't have clicked open this file.

"“We feel as if we had to penetrate phenomena: our investigation, however, is not directed towards phenomena, but, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena. We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind of statement that we make about phenomena."

It's from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations ; now all I have to do is find the section number because I apparently didn't note it the first time round!

June 27, 2007

Knock on wood and Mashallah: I had the kind of writing afternoon today that made me fall in love with my dissertation project all over again. Yes, for the past few days (possibly weeks and months) there was more toleration than anything else...a commitment to see it through but today I'm madly and head over heels in love with it. What I call "green points galore"....green points are what I call my own ideas that jump out in response to reading or watching a text...yes I do consider them bordering on brilliant or rather having the potential to produce something novel and insightful.

One catch as far as posting the day's favorite sentence goes...since I'm holding on to some measure of anonymity it's getting increasingly difficult to post one that doesn't reveal the exact project and, by extension, yours truly. So I'm not really picking the one I like best but rather the one I like best that still conceals my identity as it were. In other words, consider this a disclaimer...I'm writing funkier stuff that is infinitely more exciting.

"The debate between these two characters then is not based on an abstract category we refer to as 'communalism'; rather, it is a legitimation struggle involving 'faith' that is historical not in the teleological sense but, rather, in the empirical sense in so far that its specific deployment in the here-and-now is made meaningful bearing in mind prior uses."

June 26, 2007

"Thus, as the preceding analysis illustrates, these boundaries do not represent some sort of externally existing reality that they represent accurately but, instead, acquire meaning in specific and ongoing legitimation struggles whose consequence, in the case at hand, has been a persistence of conflict."

Hmm if I compare this to yesterday's edition I'm hovering over redundancy but it probably looks a whole lot better in context than I'm giving it credit for. Chalk that up to another ho-hum writing day or is it now a spell given that it was the second day in a row?

Here's to a better day tomorrow. I wish I was one of those people who could have terrific writing days in some sort of extended succession. Or is this the monotony of discipline that overwhelms, possibly quells, the bulk of my enthusiasm. Okay I'll stop analyzing here and see what transpires tomorrow.

June 25, 2007

"All of these actors speak of the same identity/entity; the heterogeneity apparent in this conversation is illustrative of the differences in moral-practical ways of knowing that produce varied perspectives on the world."

Not the best writing day but I do have this sentence to show for it which isn't half-bad IMHO.

Insert happy dance here....one chapter draft done!

I guess all I needed was the longest day of the year to finish something. I have officially crossed off "draft of chapter for TPTINTD" from my "to-do" list.

Yipppeeeee! Yay me!

O Summer Solstice! How I love thee!

Between a finished review for a refereed journal and a book chapter within the span of a week not to mention ongoing work on a dissertation chapter I'm beginning to think that I might be able to pull off academicking without falling down on my ass all the time.

I'm currently contemplating taking a break tomorrow so if you don't see a favorite sentence posted you'll know what happened. Hmm I really should take half the day off at the very least, yes? To reward myself for completing something and shipping it off?

June 21, 2007

From today's work bonanza:

"But why? Is difference always evil? Or, should we attempt to make difference harmless or “good”? Can we learn to think of difference as somethingthat also just ‘is’?"

June 20, 2007

Today's sentence from TPTINTD:

"Life’s funny isn’t it? The very name that I, throughout my life, had seen others associate with my being an outsider had now made me less of one."

Now I m-u-s-t get up, walk away from The Laptop, and step outside to enjoy the remaining 90 or so minutes of daylight...that I've written a whopping total of 9 pages from scratch today means I certainly deserve it!

PS: Nopes, don't feel too sorry for me. I haven't exactly been chained to my desk all day plus I stepped out for lunch :-).

June 19, 2007

Today's edition. Perhaps a mouthful and too abstract - especially when it's taken out of context like it has been in this post - but, nonetheless, here it is:

"Shifting our attention away from normatively desirable yet, still, fictional possibilities to the empirical narratives that provide the contours of the worlds we inhabit opens up, if you will, new possibilities for knowing 'X' in which the causal complexity of its very existence - in the sense of its 'coming-into-being' repeatedly in social processes - can be accounted for."

June 18, 2007

Today was devoted primarily to reviewing an article that I had been sent and preparing a narrative document with more detailed comments.

So instead of a sentence I wrote I offer today a quote that I tracked down which sets the tone in some respects for the piece I am working on for TPTINTD as well as the current dissertation chapter I am writing:

"You needed me. You needed to perfect me.
In your absence you polished me into the Enemy.
Your history gets in the way of my memory."
---Excerpt from 'Farewell' by Agha Shahid Ali

Hmm as I think about it some more it seems like this verse/excerpt sets the tone for one of the main arguments in the dissertation as a whole.

Until tomorrow!

Favorite sentences resume Monday

So here's what has happened:

June 14, 2007: Working through a film and some interviews that recollected (first-hand) experiences of immigrants to Pakistan sent me into a loop where horror gave way to being too depressed to push my own thoughts. Overwhelmingly tragic doesn't begin to describe what these people went through. Couple that with the almost effortless yet appropriately emotional way in which they share their tale and it gets even more boggling. I also discovered that I pause when I come to this film and these sets of interviews every single time I have tried to incorporate them in my dissertation. Possibly because it connects all too well with the stories of my own family especially the paternal grandparents. And then a hiatus ensues because it's just too difficult to return to processing those thoughts. I should probably not include these texts - at least not now. Maybe later? I do have disjointed field notes that I jotted from revisiting these texts but I'm not up to sharing my favorite sentence from them.

June 15, 2007: Planned 'off' day to indulge in partaking of the first day first show of "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" - Bollywood blockbuster as the ads say - review post to follow next week. Suffice it to say I loved it. Then I spent the day with some friends.

June 16, 2007: There might be a post today but most likely all of today will be spent reviewing a piece for a journal that I need to send out next week. That I only got into bed around 3 am after a long but fun Friday is making me drag my butt today hence significantly decreasing the chance that new writing will happen...edits maybe but that's probably about it.

June 17, 2007: Not just Sunday but a very special one - Fathers Day.

This is the long-winded way of me saying...regular posting of "today's favorite sentence" will resume Monday June 18, 2007.

June 13, 2007

Here it is: "The purpose towards which I employ an engagement with these multiple positions is not to propose corrective interpretations but, rather, to illustrate the heterogeneous character of that which is superficially, even inaccurately, presumed to be homogeneous."

June 12, 2007

So today I worked primarily on the chapter that will be my contribution in The Project That Is Not The Dissertation (TPTINTD henceforth). That this essay is more like a personal narrative that is woven together in ways that will eventually make a broader analytical point makes it even more difficult to pick one favorite sentence that might stand on its own and convey the message it does as part of the larger paragraph.

Oh well...if it does, it does; if it doesn't, you know why.

So here goes: "So far violence was something that happened in neighborhoods none of us had heard of let alone ventured. But this time it was right at our doorstep. And because of it my world seemed to have been altered forever."

Until tomorrow!

Could-Be-My-Twin, drop me a line?

Apparently there is another person either in The City of All Things Capital (aka Islamabad) or who knows a lot of people there who could be my twin if we were related. Over the last few years I've met plenty of people who either live/d in Islamabad or visited frequently and have mistaken me for this person. [I hope there's a vice versa there and this person gets asked when she'll be done with her Ph.D. as well!] And now it's transcended into the virtual sphere. Multiple people have poked or messaged me on facebook thinking I am her.

Now I'm totally curious about Could-Be-My-Twin [CBMT..hmm acronym does not bode well!]....yes that is what I am calling her even though I know her name....well I can't quite recall it right now but as far as my memory serves me I know it begins with a Z or an I. I wonder what she does. Is she PhDing too? Does she have kids? What are her views on abortion? Does she love the book "Kartography" as much as I do? Is she just as conflicted about which song she likes best on the "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" soundtrack? Is she tall or does she buy clothes from the petite section like yours truly? Does she have siblings? Does she crave dark chocolate? What kind of relationship does she have with her parents? Who was her first love? Who does she think make better friends - men or women? Is she also cleanliness-obsessed? Does she like to get down and boogie? Hmm does she procrastinate or is she efficient when it comes to dissertating?

CBMT, if you ever happen to read this drop me a line...preferably with answers to all of the questions above.

Okay break over. Must get back to half-finished thought.

Favorite sentence of the day is forthcoming although it'll be from the book chapter I need to send out this week instead of the dissertation.

June 11, 2007

As promised, from today's work. I didn't think I'd get to The Dissertation today but I managed to switch gears between dissertating and finishing up a draft of a book chapter that will be my contribution to the project I mentioned earlier.

"What you will notice in the empirical discussions presented in this section is that that "the nation" or its "national identity" is embedded - both morally and practically - in the mundane as well as the extraordinary such that religion, epics, language, pronunciations, aesthetics, diet, folklore, family, codes of morality, cultural signifiers, etc are all relevant to understanding the ongoing emergence of 'self' as distinct from the 'other'."

Why do I like it? No I am under no such grand illusion that it's the most sparkling thought. Still, I think it is pretty effective in setting up the empirical analysis that will follow in chapter 3 or 4 (the exact numbering will depend on whether I separate what I am describing as an "empirical preface" or leave it as part of chapter 2).

Signing off till tomorrow evening.

The (New) Plan of Action

Yes I've been crying wolf on finishing The Dissertation for so long now that even I wouldn't tend to an SOS from myself. Part of it is me obsessing for perfection but mostly it's been a combination of unrealistic expectations that I have held myself to and a fear of turning in anything less than perfect.

But 'tis the Summer Of Change. Not only that but I can actually see The Finish Line.

So here's the plan. Well some of it anyway....writing too much might divulge my identity and I need the (semi?)anonymity this space affords me...at least for now.

I'm going to write every day except Sundays....no matter how little it is going to get done everyday. Until I get done with my dissertation I'm going to post my favorite sentence from the day's writing here. The caveat: the sentence might not seem all that captivating for readers of this blog since I'll be deleting stuff that identifies me or my dissertation. Yes paranoid-seeming I know but like I said I need the anonymity for the next few years.

So check in, share my progress, and on the days that you don't see a sentence please, please, please yell at me! Unless it's Sunday :-).

Of course I'll be posting other stuff from time to time but first priority is The Dissertation. The subject of these posts will be that day's date. Hmm maybe I'll throw in non-identifying progress updates along with the favorite sentence every now and then (regularly will mean I spend more time blogging that could have gone into a little more writing). No promises on the latter since those require time to draw up a list etc and almost always gets in the way of work in my experience.

Deadline to finish you ask? I have one in mind but I want to wait to re-evaluate it after a few weeks before announcing it in The Blogosphere or Blogistan or whatever other 'nation' sounding label you prefer. I just don't want to cry wolf again and be a bit prudent about this.

So stay tuned for daily updates. There will be one later today but that will likely be from The Project That Is Not The Dissertation (TPTINTD). I'm going to aim for a paragraph in the dissertation but no promises. TPTINTD beckons!