Duke Journal: Fin

So I'm sitting in Duke's Bryan Student Center watching the afternoon NCAA games and killing time online. I gave my talk this afternoon. I thought it went well. It was a small group so I went the informal route, making it more of a seminar than a lecture. Most of the Duke historians who would have found the talk relevant are on their way to the OAH meeting in Houston this weekend, though one prominent historian with an interest in US-South Africa connections was there and we were able to talk about future collaborations and the like.

Before the talk I finished up my research for the trip. What I thought might take an hour took nearly three, and I am heading home with easily four reams worth of photocopies. The work just starts once the research is accumulated, of course, and there will be lots of organizing and filing and in the process thinking over the next few weeks and months as I try to turn thousands of documents into that alchemist's blend of art and science that is good historical writing.

I don't leave until tomorrow, but I do have to be up early. I downshifted from the incredible Washington Duke Inn, where I spent the last few nights, to a decidedly more downscale place where I plan only to lay my head before my early flight. I don't really want to leave campus, because, well, I won't be at a place like Duke again any time soon and once I'm gone I'm gone. It's a silly mindset that ties into a lot of the feelings I expressed in yesterday's post, I suppose, but i want to be here, to hold on to this quasi-attachment, for as long as possible.

It's a gorgeous day here, the sort of spring day that makes me miss the Carolinas (I lived in Charlotte from 1994 to 1996). Campus is bustling, people are beginning to talk about weekend plans, which in many cases means tonight's plans, and of course basketball seems to be on everyone's mind. By this time tomorrow I'll be back to Odessa, to home and hearth, which I am looking forward to, and to the politics of higher education in Texas, which I am not.

More Duke Journaling

Doing research ain't digging ditches. I grew up on a farm and research isn't equivalent to shoveling shit or lifting bales of hay or carrying pails of milk. But research is still draining, especially when one is under a time crunch. So the last few days I have been plowing through boxes and boxes of great stuff, particularly from the LeRoy T. Walker African News Service Archives, an invaluable resource (for those of you in the biz think of a 400-box, very well organized clippings file) that I would bet I revisit for projects in the future. I'll go home with a good fifteen pounds or more of photocopies. And yes, I'm the Luddite who photocopies, rather than takes digital pictures for reasons that actually have nothing to do with an aversion to the technology and everything to do with a preference for hard copies made instantly.

The work has been good. I have been trying to balance several projects because I do not know when I'll next get back here. I am down to half of one substantial research box left to go. I thought I'd finish today, but my copy card ran out after anyplace I could fill it up closed (there is only one machine in the entire library and it is out of order) so I'll need to return tomorrow, likely in the hours before I give my talk in the Rare Book Room (3:00 if you are in the area -- I'd truly love to have you show up).

I always experience a mix of emotions when I get to spend time at a place like Duke. I'm not at all proud of some of them. Envy, to be sure. Resentment too -- I'll put my record against anyone in their history department who got their PhD within three years in either direction of when I got mine (ie: 2000-2006). But also a real sense of appreciation. After all, I spend my days breathing decidedly less rarefied air than that which envelopes this community. When I leave on Friday I'll inevitably feel as if I did not use my time to the fullest, occupying a limited swath on campus as well as possible rather than spreading myself out to do every little thing possible. So I already have a favorite coffee shop and preferred hangout spots based on a limited sample.

One of the impressions that stands out immediately is the privilege that is ubiquitous here. And I do not mean that in a class warrior sort of way. But students and faculty and the whole community has first-rate facilities and services, options that students at lesser places, and the vast majority of places are lesser than Duke, could not even imagine. And I think of my time at Williams and how while I feel like I did so much there I still embodied the idea of youth being wasted on the young. Whenever I pass by the Duke Chapel, the central landmark on campus (which I can see clearly from my seat in this coffee shop and which is supposedly modeled after the one at Princeton and is reminiscent of the one at Williams) I gaze up in something of a state of wonderment and I realize that after another ten days here I'd probably forget to be in awe and would take all of this for granted.

I found out today that I lost out on a job I very much wanted to a newly minted Duke PhD and I was, I have to admit, a bit furious. I am sure this student is great. And the job was posted at either the Assistant Professor level or at Associate. But I cannot help but be angry about how much of academic hiring, like the NBA or NFL draft, is so much about potential. The reality is that if in six years this person has a record anywhere near approaching mine the school will have hired well, but of course they could have had that record now, with me, and they obviously consciously chose to pass it up. So add that to the "resentment" file (I'm a petty person, I suppose) even though I'll from here on out happily list my own little affiliation with Duke with pride.

Tired Feet, Rested Souls and Empty Pockets

On Thursday afternoon from 3:00 to 4:00 in the Rare Book Room of Duke University's Perkins Library I will be giving a talk, “Tired Feet, Rested Souls and Empty Pockets: Bus Boycotts and the Politics of Race in the U.S. and South Africa,” which will be sponsored by the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture. If you are going to be anywhere near the Triangle Area I hope you will swing by.

A Duke Journal (Self Indulgence Alert)

I spent my first full day at Duke today, working in Special Collections at Duke's Perkins Library on my John Hope Franklin Grant. So far so good -- technically I applied to work on South Africa in the 1980s but really I am looking at several collections related to a handful of topics on which I am working, including bus boycotts; my book on sport, race, and politics; and my comparative bus boycotts project.

As always happens with research, the things I assumed I'd find have proven disappointing but the things I assumed would occupy a passing glance have proven invaluable. No matter what happens with the digitalization of archives I will always believe that nothing compares to digging through the boxes. Those fools who talk about how we MUST make higher education more efficient have never been in an archives and have never sat in a seminar. Education and scholarship are oftentimes by their very nature inefficient, and that's a good thing.

Duke will always hold a place in my heart. This was the first school to recruit me seriously to run (well, jump) track, and while Williams won out for a host of reasons, when I wandered Duke's campus for a while I certainly knew that I could have spent four years here and have been happy. And although he is a giant douchebag, the Thunderstick went to Duke, and despite my better judgment, he is one of my best friends and when he was a senior and I was at UNCC there were a few drunken weekends on this campus. In fact the last two days likely represents the longest sustained period of sobriety I have ever spent at Duke. And to think, I have another week here.

Duke Bound (Self Indulgence Alert)

Tomorrow I'm off to spend ten days in the Triangle area of North Carolina. I have a travel grant from the John Hope Franklin Research Center at Duke University and I'll be conducting research starting Friday and will be giving a talk next week (details to come).

So Can I Root For Duke Now? (Self-Indulgence Alert)

Looks like I'll be spending a bit of time at Duke's John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture. In the mid-90s I went to Duke a few times to visit the Thunderstick, and before that Duke was the biggest name school athletically to recruit me for track, so I've always had a soft spot for what might be America's most loathed university (college basketball edition.)