This was, by far, the best experience I’ve had at a conference. I have never sat through a Keynote address, so I was terrified to take on this challenge. I put a lot of joyful work into this speech. I’m honored to have shared this digital space with scholars who laid the foundation for me to do the work that I do. What a gift. I’ll never forget this experience. In this speech, I share 4 gifts of autoethnography given to me by masters of the craft and then explain the unique spin I’ve put on these techniques.
Why I’m Begrudgingly Voting “Yes” on the CSU/CFA Tentative Agreement
I’ve spent the last week outraged. For the last four days, I planned to vote “no” on the tentative agreement (TA) and then leave the union. Before I rationalize my change of heart, I first want to distinguish between my two primary sources of grief. First, I’m unhappy with the terms of our TA. Second, I’m disgusted with our union’s machinations. I’ll first explain why I think the union shot itself in the foot with its messaging, then make a case for why I’m now leaning toward a “yes” vote, despite the union’s TERRIBLE maneuvering.
One thing that’s puzzled me this week is why the CFA made a 12% GSI the FOCAL POINT of its messaging. The bargaining team knew that “me too” clauses meant we’d never see more than 5%. So why center 12%? My guess is that they were using 12% as a bargaining chip to secure other goals, like raising the salary floor for lecturers. The strategy is nonsensical to me given the union’s refusal to budge from 12% when the CSU tried multiple times to compromise. You can see CSU’s and CFA’s back and forth here: https://www.cfabargaining.org/proposals Each CSU offer in 2023 was met with, “5 is not 12.” But they always knew anything over 5 would trigger a “me too” for multiple other unions, so why not negotiate on OTHER terms and avert a strike? Rank-and-file members are rightfully pissed because many terms of the TA were included in previous CSU offers (e.g., retroactive pay for ’23-’24, a 2.65% SSI), then taken off the table in CSU’s last “best and final” immediately prior to the strike, only to be brought back in the TA. The bargaining team is now trying to paint these OLD elements of past offers as NEW gains. They’re playing a shell game, which has enraged membership. CFA’s 12% messaging played with the hearts and minds of its membership. Future strike authorizations will be an uphill battle. People will leave and have already left the union. So much of this could have been sidestepped had the CFA 1) tried to compromise with the CSU in earlier rounds of bargaining, 2) been forthright about how anything over 5% would trigger several “me too” clauses that rendered more than 5 impossible, and 3) not treated a full-week strike as a performative instrument, wherein rank-and-file were used as pawns and disrespected. That Monday night email to return to work Tuesday was gross, especially after the CSU tried to get students to rat out striking professors. I’m tempted to vote “no” just to stick it to the CFA and its terrible leadership.
On the other hand, I don’t want to cut off my nose to spite my face. After ending the strike on day 1, CFA made it virtually impossible for us to get more than we got in the TA. I agree with the resounding sentiment that we likely would have secured more had we been on strike for four days. But I have to deal with the reality the CFA manufactured rather than a world of “What if?” If the TA is voted down and we go back into bargaining, we definitely will not get over 5% due to “me too” clauses, likely won’t get retroactive pay, and might (over may) get the CSU to eventually budge on other issues. Unfortunately, the CFA already squandered its opportunity to effectively bargaining terms for ’23-’24. So why vote “yes” when I was going to vote “no”?
First, CFA sold me on a pipe dream that anything over 5% was attainable. I’m disgusted by their lack of transparency about “me too” clauses. The union’s now pivoting as if “me too” is new information. But that’s always been the reality of our bargaining situation. So the question becomes if I want that 5% to be retroactive? Yes.
Second, I was hung up on July’s contingency because, as an 18-year CSU employee, contingencies have burned me twice: in 2008 and last year. Then I learned that, per Clause 41.3 of the 2022-2024 agreement, the base-funding contingency was ALREADY PRE-BAKED INTO THE CONTRACT. Here’s the clause:
Any term(s) of this Agreement that carries an economic cost shall not be implemented until the amount required therefore is appropriated and made available to the CSU for expenditure for such purposes. The CSU shall make appropriate requests for financing or budgetary funding in amounts sufficient to meet obligations set out in this Agreement. If less than the amount needed to implement this Agreement is appropriated in any given year of this Agreement, and made available to the CSU for expenditure, the term(s) of this Agreement shall automatically be subject to the meet and confer process.
In other words, the TA’s language about ’24-’25 is redundant. The contingency for ’23-’24 isn’t explicit in the TA because the state has ALREADY provided base funding for the academic year. I’m not optimistic that we’ll secure base funds for ’24-’25. People (myself included) have been circulating a fiscal outlook from California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office that predicts underfunding the state’s schools. This document specifically addresses Prop 98, which establishes minimum funding for grade schools and community colleges, not the CSU. Still, the LAO’s fiscal outlook is prophetic and fuels my pessimism regarding what’s to come (or NOT come) in July. Either way you cut it, the CSU will not guarantee a raise that’s not connected to base funding. From what I NOW understand, a base-funding contingency is already baked into our contract and should act as an enthymematic presumption for all raises.
The thing I hate most about the TA is the non-performative language about mental health counselors. The CSU “agreed to move toward at 1500:1 student-counselor ratio”? How does one measure “move toward”? I fully understand how anyone might vote “no” based entirely on this bullet point. The language is nothing more than a commitment to NOT commit to student mental health in the WAKE OF A PANDEMIC, and it’s appalling. This is a classic non-performative, or speech-act that does NOT describe what it will (or won’t) do. Both the CFA and CSU should be ashamed.
The most heartbreaking part of this week is how the CFA torpedoed its credibility. I no longer have any faith in our union. My plan is to leave the CFA if we don’t receive an additional 5% in July. I don’t blame anyone who votes “no” on the TA, whether it be for the agreement’s terms or to send a message to our terrible statewide leadership. I also appreciate why some have already left. I’m not persuaded by those who say, “No, stay! You can help change a fundamentally broken system.” My mental health is more important than being a radical agent of change in an organization that manipulates and disrespects its rank-and-file members and lacks this much transparency. I may have had the energy and patience to do so in my 20s and 30s. Closing in on 50, my energy is better spent on projects that bring me joy.
Why I No Longer Perform (my first performance poem in years)
“Retired”
I hereby retire from performance:
oral, aural, and otherwise.
Ragan no longer needs theatrics
to exorcise her demons.
No more split-pea soup spit at sad-eyed priests,
head-spin, sloughing skin
crucifix fuck screech.
I swear
I have removed my hand
from the Bible.
Performance appealed to my youthful sensibilities.
My career to nowhere began at Houston’s
Theatre Under the Stars, aka TUTS,
a great place for putzes like my dad
to send late-in-life babies
when they were too busy or lazy to parent.
The TUTS academy taught me “the basics,”
like how to step, ball, change,
and rearrange my face to convey assigned emotions:
HAPPY!
SAD!
Facial acrobatics served me well
when boys twice my age used their power
to compel me,
much like the power of Christ compels clergymen.
Say it again.
“The power of Christ compels” them.
Bad spirits are patient.
They await opportunities,
And pounce when preoccupied parents
haven’t checked the children.
Demons strike with Ouija boards and bewitching spells.
Churches melt to stages
upon which sexual education takes the form of
“Christ-like” mutual masturbation.
I suffered a similar not-so-original sin at the hands of
three young men,
their sticky semen dripped down my tiny thighs.
Childhood histrionics led Dad & Joyce to assume
my disclosure was,
“More lies. Attention-seeking behavior from
our little actor.”
To Dad & Joyce, I was The Crucible’s Abigail,
transfixed by Tituba,
pointing fingers at false witches.
“What has possessed him to fib?
The problem with Ragan is not her bed;
it’s her brain.”
And so I buried myself neck-deep in drama—
on and offstage.
Rage, tears, and inappropriately timed public confessions—
anything to lessen the possession
of three young men who stole my soul from heaven
when I was 7,
that tender age when kids still add halves to their earthly rotations.
Come to think of it, maybe I was 7-and-a-half, or 8.
Too late to say now.
When you step foot in an empty space,
you can swap your face with anyone.
Why not exchange pain with Oedipus Rex?
Gouge out eyes and
no longer see
how the power of Christ compels thee.
“What an excellent day for an exorcism.”
I have retired from performance,
because, at 47, I no longer demand attention
to sate the ravenous kid in me,
no longer need to purge sins via Ibsen,
nor laugh past pain through Neil Simon.
I lay down a tragic mask
that served me well when I was anything but.
The pipe dream that men who have sinned
against me will confess and apologize—
that fantasy has exited, stage right.
Without classical training, I never learned that one does not
mention the name of the cursed Scottish play,
lest you pay the price of bad luck and disaster.
I have mastered the art of healing through forgiveness,
which ironically seems so Christian
for “faithless slime” like me.
Kindness is Currency
Funny little story. There’s this young woman who works at my regular Chipotle. She’s worked here for a long time. At first, I didn’t like her. One incident stands out. It was at the height of the pandemic and I ordered a large Coke. She handed me the fountain-drink cup by placing her fist into the container. I was like, “Um, no. I don’t want a cup that you’ve placed your entire hand in.” Since that tense exchange a few years ago, I’ve been back to this location more times than I can count. Our relationship slowly evolved. I normally sit outside and work on research for an hour. Sometimes, I only order a huge iced tea. She sometimes sits outside with me and we chat. It’s gotten to the point where she comps items for me and just gives me iced tea when I visit. Today, she came outside while I was working and told me it’s her last day. She’s finishing nursing school this semester and needs to dedicate energy to her career. I’m excited for her. She’s 20 and the world is her oyster. One of mindfulness’s many gifts is that it’s made it a lot easier for me to let go of shit and recognize that everyone has off days. I’m sad I won’t see her on these mini work jaunts. I’ll tell you what, I get treated pretty great at my two haunts: Mendocino Farm and Chipotle.
The Wonderful Craig Gingrich-Philbrook
The ISAN scholar spotlight of Craig Gingrich-Philbrook is on Youtube. Early in my career, he took me under his wing—albeit from afar. Performing a deep dive on Craig’s work was inspiring. I began writing four pieces after this panel. That productivity is a testament to the generative qualities of his research. Interviewing him for this panel was a gift.
White Gay Autoethnographer Grappling with Intersectionality
As a white gay autoethnographer, I often struggle to make my work more intersectional. A mental stumbling block for me has been a flawed assumption that reviewers asking me to be more mindful of race are pushing me to refocus an essay so that I’m interrogating my whiteness. That’s historically put me in a defensive posture where I think, “That’s not what -this- essay is about.” I’ve been meditating on this misunderstanding. A-ha moment: My misreading of reviewer feedback sounds a lot like anti-“woke” white supremacists who argue progressive theories about race are little more than white people apologizing for their whiteness.
A more cognizant engagement with race and racism can and should take many forms. Take, for example, the essay that prompted this necessary moment of self-interrogation. The piece details how my first gay haunt/bar (a place) established a foundation from which I construct arguments (rhetorical commonplaces). In one section of the paper, I talk about how gay bars perform a similar rhetorical and phenomenological function for many (probably most) LGBTQ people. Reviewers urged me to talk about Pulse Nightclub and its largely Latinx crowd. This made me think about how racism is a quotidian element of the gay bar experience. I’m reminded of a former friend walking by Rage nightclub in West Hollywood. Rage catered primarily to LA’s queer Chinese community. He’d laugh and yell, “Rice! Rice!” as he skipped by the establishment. Racism’s violence is baked into the gay bar experience. I don’t have to be on the receiving end of that brutalization to acknowledge it and cite people who discuss its impact on perception and argumentation. This makes the work richer.
This reflection isn’t me asking for a gold star. So many theorists operate from a position of “already got it.” I enjoy talking through my “I better understand” process. This realization is pretty big because it’ll help me be more mindful of and short circuit my impulse to get defensive when editorial feedback asks me to be more intersectional.
Trapped
Trapped. I don’t emphasize that word enough in my posts. My middle-aged malaise is rooted in feeling trapped–trapped in a job I’ve outgrown; trapped in a 1-bedroom apartment I outgrew a long time ago; and now trapped in California because my rights are so utterly in peril in most other states. A year ago, I applied for a job in North Carolina. I’d never entertain that sort of move now. I can’t possibly move to a state where I’d have to hold my breath each time my rights are on a ballot. For all its faults and there are many, California at least isn’t backpedaling on LBGTQ people’s humanity. The irony of all this, of course, is that tenure, rent control, and progressive laws ensnare as much as they liberate me.
A Mentor’s Passing
I need to get back into the habit of posting blog entries. I’m going through…something, like a mid-life crisis. This isn’t the sort of mid-life breakdown where I buy a sports car and date 20-year-old guys. I wish it were that sort of thing. My existential confusion started when one of my mentors took his own life early in the pandemic. Suicide often serves as a Rorschach test. We are gay scholars of the same generation, so it’s easy to project my shit on his life and confuse our issues as shared. Here’s my interpretation of Dan’s situation. He was in a fucked-up situation at ASU. Soon after I earned a PhD from that institution in 2006, several rhetoric faculty left the Hugh Downs School. Tom Nakayama went to a new university. Cheree Carlson transferred to downtown. Dan became the default mentor of every rhetoric student ASU admitted. He didn’t get to publish as much as he would have because he couldn’t possibly meet R1 publication expectations and advise as many students as he did. One bone-crushing reality about tenure and promotion is that cookie-cutter policies don’t recognize unique situations, like the one Dan found himself in. The instruction and service he served proved Herculean and should have placated whatever concerns colleagues may have had about his publication record. This is where I start to project a lot of my own shit on Dan’s circumstances. When a colleague called me late one night to tell me about Dan’s passing, my first thought was, “I get it.” I didn’t say it out loud but that was the first thing that came to my head–uninhibited by intellectualizing what transpired. I. Get. It.
Dan felt trapped. That’s how I made sense of his death. He was at an institution that ensnared him. He’d work work his ass off and be forever an associate. Maybe he didn’t feel that way. Dan had a lot of people at ASU who loved him with all their heart, that’s for sure. Perhaps this is just me using Dan as an avatar. At 47, this isn’t where I thought I would be. I’m single and rent a 1-bedroom apartment in a crime-littered city. I feel trapped at work, destined to spend the rest of my academic career at an institution I’ve evolved past. A scary question kept popping up after Dan’s death. What if this is as good as it gets for me? That sort of question can make a gal spiral down an existential void. One important lesson I learned from Dan’s passing is that suicide is selfish and harms people you love. I’d never take my own life because I don’t want to be responsible for another person pondering some of the whack shit I’ve thought since Dan left us.
I’ve given thought to what would make me happy. All signs point to leaving California. I want a job at a more prestigious university. I’d like to live in a much smaller city and own a home that could comfortably fit a second dog. I’m taking steps to get myself unstuck. One big realization I’ve had is that I’m no longer a performance studies scholar. I’ve spent my instructional career teaching rhetorical theory and criticism. I kept publishing in Text and Performance Quarterly because the journal’s familiar. I refabricated a number of essays to include performance. Articles like “Homo-work,” “Autoarchaeology of Homosexuality,” and “DiЯty” aren’t really performance essays. I’m grateful that TPQ embraced my work. But I’ve trapped myself in a pigeonhole.
A few months ago, I resigned from TPQ’s editorial board. NCA approached me to apply for the upcoming editorship. I figured it would be a nice way to cap off my relationship with the journal before I pivoted. Despite soliciting my application, the publications council went in a different direction, which was a sign for me to finally refocus. My plan moving forward is to publish work in a broader range of journals that better showcase the breadth of my research. I currently have 4 essays in the review and R & R stages at NCA journals, 3 book chapters in press, and a new scholarly book in the works. In other words, I’m taking steps to get unstuck.
This year has been the most productive of my academic life. At this point, though, it all feels like I’ve planted seeds in a garden that isn’t bearing fruit. That’s just habituated pessimism getting the best of me. I’ll continue to work my ass off because hard work is how I’ll escape.
Online Grading Hack
Awesome grading hack for grading online assignments. I might only be able to explain this with the help of the attached image. When grading online assignments, my guess is that most people have a list of potential notes they can copy and paste common mistakes into the feedback field. My hack takes this to another level. I use Elgato Stream deck to create folders for each assignment. An assignment’s folder contains a digital board of feedback. With the simple press of a single button, the stream deck enters the common mistake into the feedback field. This is next-level grading.
Case Study: Los Angeles Bubble Bursts
Today, the CA Association for Realtors reported a massive 4% MoM drop in CA median home prices from May to June. https://www.car.org/en/aboutus/mediacenter/newsreleases/2022releases/june2022sales
This is huge, especially when put into historical perspective.
-First, MoM price declines in CA aren’t singular events. They happen in BIG CLUMPS, or multiple consecutive months of declines.
-I have Case Schiller data that goes back to 1987. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LXXRSA The first MoM decline in LA home prices was May 1990. It was only .5%. It was followed by ELEVEN more months of price declines, ranging from .2% to 1%. Three months of TINY growth are then followed by 36 months of MoM declines, ranging from .03% to 1.3%. The market again saw TINY MoM increases for two months followed by SIXTEEN consecutive months of Mom declines in median price, ranging from .02% to .7%.
-The LA housing market saw MoM declines from May 1990 until February 1997–with a few months of minuscule appreciation thrown in the mix, only to be negated by countless consecutive months of value depreciation.
-This is a good time to remind you that CA MoM decline from May to June 2022 was FOUR PERCENT!
-Now let’s talk about the Great Financial Crisis. Case Schiller notes the first MoM decline in LA emerged May 2006, when home prices feel .05%. Over the next three years (5/2006-5/2009, all but THREE months saw home prices decline. MoM declines ranges from .05% to 3.6%.
-April 2006 was the peak; we might compare it to April or May 2022, which actually reflects deals made in the real-time top market (March). Median home prices dropped in LA by 4% one year later (March 2007). By November 2007, LA median home prices dropped 15% from their peak. By June 2008, prices were down 29%. By June 2009, home prices had plummeted 41% in LA. From July 2009 until May 2010, the market began modestly appreciating; then, boom, prices tumbled again for 20 of the next 24 months.
A few take-aways:
-California is one of the most volatile real estate markets in the country.
-A MoM dip in price foretells upcoming months (and likely years) of MoM price declines.
-CAR’s 4% number is nominal, so I’m not sure how it will translate once adjusted for inflation. Either way, that statewide 4% figure is meteoric–but the kind of meteor that’s plummeting to earth and about to crater RE real estate in its path.
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