The Road to Carolina

If you're going to be anywhere near the Research Triangle in North Carolina this weekend, I'd encourage you to swing by the South East Regional Seminar in African Studies (SERSAS) and the South East Africanist Network (SEAN) Conference. The main program will take place on Saturday at the University of North Carolina's Fedex Global Education Center. The conference theme is "Border Crossings, Migrations, and Interventions," but panels will deviate from those themes. I'm on the panel and would love to meet any readers who might be in the area.

The Travel itinerary

I have lots of travel ahead in the weeks to come with little rest in between. Today I depart for New England. I'll arrive in Boston, drive north, take a quick overnight stop in the old home town to stay with my Dad, and early tomorrow morning will head to Burlington, Vermont where I am on the program for the Northeast Workshop in Southern African Studies.

I get home late Tuesday night and the next day head to Chapel Hill, where I will be giving a talk at the Wilson Special Collections Library in a program titled "The Long Road to Parchman: North Carolina and the Desegregation of Interstate Busing." I'll be discussing the Journey of Reconciliation and the Freedom Rides in North Carolina. From there I'll fly straight to the Southern Historical Association's annual meeting in Baltimore.

I'll return from Baltimore for just a few days before heading on to the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) meeting, where I am giving a paper on the 2010 World Cup. Then it's back for a few days before one last trip to Washington, where I am giving a paper on gender, race and South African track and field at the Sport and the Global South Conference at George Mason University. I'll also squeeze a quick trip up to Williams for Homecoming while I'm at it. And it all ends with a socer tournament in Austin.

I've somehow even managed to avoid canceling any classes during this crazy month or so.

Posting will be light, it goes without saying, but I leave you with this assessment of Liberia's fascinating but fraught presidential election.

San Angelo

Recently a Washington Post travel writer traveled back to his home town of San Angelo, Texas, not so far from Odessa (by Texas standards) to discover What Makes San Angelo Distinctive. More to the point, he was curious about why the National Trust for Historic Preservation this year ranked San Angelo among its dozen distinctive destinations. Like so many people he left his hometown without thinking there was much special about it, was happy to leave, and other than to see family is rarely in any haste to return.

I've spent a little bit of time in San Angelo -- Mrs. Dcat and I have enjoyed the old downtown area, a little strip with an old whorehouse and nifty boutiques and some good restaurants and bars. And I am a mamber of the Texas State Historical Commission's Board of Review, so I have some affinity for the National Trust. I'm not sure if I'd make a special trip from out of state just to see San Angelo on its own, but if you get anywhere near West Texas it is certainly worth a visit.

Back in the USA

After 48 or so hours of traveling, I'm back in Odessa. The reasons for my early return are pretty horrible, related to deaths in my wife's family, and I certainly wish I could have stayed in South Africa. But it's always nice to be home. Hopefully I'll be back to regular blogging soon.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Over the past fifteen years or so I have almost certainly spent more Independence Days abroad than in the United States. This year is no exception, as I arrived in East London late this morning. I spent the night in Mthatha in a B&B whose second B gave me killer food poisoning this morning. I decided not to head on to Alice after driving some 200km on a very delicate stomach to get here. So I'll move on to Fort Hare for research tomorrow instead.

By the way, for bizarre reasons the blog was down for at least a while today/last night. I have no idea why. Hopefully there are no further issues.

Now go eat something grilled and drink something fermented.

Friday Sox Talk: Travel Edition

It's been some time since I provided a Friday Sox Report, largely because I have been in Los Angeles and now South Africa and as a result have not been able to write.

Let's get to the brunt of the matter: interleague play is not working out well for the Sox, who have lost every series in this leg against the National League and might be on the verge of getting swept by a Phillies team most people expect to be a potential World Series foe for the Sox. It all comes back to what I've said before and will play again. This team as not as bad as they looked in April and we not as good as they seemed at the beginning of June. They are better than they have played of late. It's pretty clear that this is not a 105-win Sox team. But they have to be better than this. The division still seems to be theirs to claim, but they do have to claim it. I'm tired of checking in only to find another loss to a National League team.

I'm now at Durban's beachfront, having moved on to the Garden Court Marine Parade. I plan to spend the weekend decompressing, catching up on some work and digging into South African life and politics and generally enjoying is country I love so much. You can check out more extensive updates, including on my conference, at the FPA Africa Blog.

Back to South Africa - No Thanks to Delta

Oh, Delta Airline – is there no way you won’t abuse and screw over your passengers? The Atlanta to Joburg flight last night was delayed multiple times totaling nearly six hours. Throughout the communication was dubious, but once we finally we prepared to get off the ground Delta officials insisted that we would all be taken care of upon arrival, an important factor since just about anyone with a connecting flight was certain to miss it.

Fast forward to a few hours ago. We land at a quiet O.R. Tambo Airport at nearly midnight. Now keep in mind that every element of the delay has to do with issues in the United States and not in South Africa, yet the South African staff was left to deal with dozens of customers who had been made promises. Instead, we find out that only those with connect owns booked directly through Delta would be addressed. And given that Delta has almost no partnerships with South African carriers, that effectively took them off the hook in their mind not only for addressing those connections but for providing lodging. Keep in mind also that many of those stranded in Joburg are not especially familiar with either e country or the city and yet are essentially being told that on their own they have to book a room on their own aft midnight in a strange (and sprawling) city.

I advocated for Delta at least minimally helping people arrange for hotels that we would have to pay for on our own and an understanding agent did do that after 1:00 this morning. I got into a guest house in Edendale at nearly 2 and of course am now having trouble sleeping. And I have no idea what to expect when I get to South African Airways tomorrow to ask them to rebook me for my missed flight to Durban tonight. I expect that there will be a few headaches. But (and take note, Delta) ultimately SAA is aware that you don’t abuse your customer base and I suspect that at some point tomorrow I’ll be in Durban, enjoying far more temperate climes than those here in Joburg. I’ll arrive at the South African Historical Society conference really late, but better late than never.

(Cross posted at the FPA Africa Blog)

Red Sox Report: Airport iPad Edition

OK, so I have an iPad now, which I guess means I'm now one of those guys who always lets you know that he has an iPad. I tend to have a steep learning curve on these things, and so expect glitches with this, my first dcat post on my new toy.

The Red Sox have, in a word, been awesome of late, sweeping away just about everything in their path, with the closest call in the last couple of weeks being a loss to open the recent series against the Rays, and even then they came back to win the next two and take the series.

We are in a nice part of the sports year. There is time to breathe after the Bruins' glorious run to the Stanley Cup and the NBA is a feint memory (though I almost wish I had a class this summer term if only to see West Texans discover that there are NBA teams in Texas in the same way that they discovered that Dallas-Fort Worth had a baseball team last fall. And so barring a few intermittent events (soccer here and there - I am writing this on my way to California whe I have tickets to the finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the Rose Bowl in addition to seats at a Dodgers-Angels game and U2 in Angels Stadium - the US track championships and subsequent world championships) baseball takes center stage.

The Red Sox are in a position to take the East and possibly to do so in dominant fashion. Injuries are always a possibility (Clay Buchholz has a worrying back issue and we've already lost DiceK for the season) and we've seen this team struggle with slumps this season already. But as of right now the Sox look set to shine in a period when baseball can dominate the sporting calendar.

As I said, I am en route to California for about ten days and then from LA I'll be flying straight to my annual South Africa trip. Oh, and have I mentioned that I got an iPad?

Hallelujah, I'm a Travelin'

I've been loading up on content this evening in part because I'll be heading out of town for about ten days tomorrow.

First I head to Chicago where on Friday (April 29) I'll be chairing a panel, sitting on another, and participating in an author's event for the Freedom Riders 50th Anniversary event this weekend. All events are at the Hyatt McCormick Place.

From there I fly to DC Saturday and will be heading to Charlottesville soon after. On Monday (May 2) I'll be giving a talk at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at UVA as part of their forum series. My talk is "Freedom's Main Line: The Freedom Rides at 50." My talk is at 11:00. I hope to see you at both events.

There is talk of another event in Washington next week, so I'll be sticking around until the weekend. If you are in Chicago or Charlottesville please come by.

And of course if you have not yet gotten your copy of Freedom's Main Line in hardcover, supplies actually are running low in the lead up to the release of the paperback.

[Crossposted]

On Travel

I've taken this trip on the Okavango Delta on mokoros. In fact it makes up one of my favorite memories, especially when we arrived at our chosen campsite to discover it being ransacked by two giant bull elephants.

I tend to be a bit skeptical of most travel writing, especially that about Africa, as most of the genre tends to veer toward buttressing various hoary cliches about Africa. Nonetheless, I also think there is a place for even the most boosterish travel writing -- that is, the kind you find in a typical weekend edition of the newspaper that basically is a sales job for travel.

Some time ago inveterate travel writer Paul Theroux (with whose writings I tend to have a love-hate relationship) wrote an essay in the New York Times' Sunday travel section titled "Why We Travel." I think "we" travel for many reasons. Every time I get the chance to return to Africa it is always driven by work, but even when I go for work, I'm not going to pretend that I work fifteen hours a day. Most of my time is devoted to the simple pleasures of travel. Seeing old friends and returning to familiar haunts as well as always seeking out the new.

[Crossposted]

An Anniversary Celebration

After classes tomorrow I'm off to Vegas. A friend and I are meeting there to celebrate the 19th anniversary of our 21st birthdays, his a week ago, mine a few days after my return. What happens there may or may not stay there depending on what is worth retelling.

Airport Security and Privilege

Can someone please explain to me why there is a special security line for first-class passengers in (at least some) airports? I can understand why airlines provide special perks, including devoted lines, for their monied customers. But the process of security, which is operated by the United States government, is not supposed to be eased by privilege. Paying more to fly in better seats on American Airlines should literally have nothing to do with the treatment one gets in passing through TSA's gantlet.

This is yet another example of how the whole security apparatus is largely theater. After all, Osama bin Laden could afford to fly first class. Affluence is hardly indicative of virtue and flying coach is not a sign of jihadism.

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.

Charlotte Diary (More Self Indulgence)

I plowed through all of the boxes the archivists could make available to me before shutting down for the weekend, and with free time until Monday morning I decided to come down to Charlotte. I am staying with a good friend, one of my former professors at UNC-Charlotte, where I did my MA in Southern history.

Charlotte has changed remarkably since I was living here (I left in *gulp* 1996). Then Charlotte was something of an Ersatz city, all gleaming skyscrapers and striking skyline but without much to it. Uptown (Charlotte's somewhat pretentious name for the city center, or what most of us would call "downtown") served the city's business elite and banking establishment, but even on a weekend uptown rolled up its sidewalks and shut down until the next business day. Things have changed not only uptown, but across the city, where there is much more to do, where chains have been replaced by vibrant local institutions and where the funky, artsy district extends to more than Dillworth, a wonderful but too-small (and thus restricted and restrictive) enclave just off the edge of downtown.

Yesterday afternoon after I arrived Dan and I played frisbee golf at a great course in a park that also had beach volleyball and lots of space for dog walking and playgrounds and the like. I had only played frisbee golf once before, and much like my real golf game I sent it left or right when I wanted to go straight, straight when I wanted to go left or right.

It's sunny and bright and Charlotte is in its glory. The ACC championship is today and so I need to find a place to watch that. I'm back to the Triangle Area tomorrow morning.

States I've Visited

States I've visited.

Not too bad. By visited I pretty much mean "Have spent enough time in to be able to tell you some sort of story and spent at least one night" and not just "was there once for a layover," with the exception of Oklahoma, which I drove through once with Tootle. Driving the length of Oklahoma seems worthy of an exemption.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I'm back from the epic New England trip, which included much merriment with friends in Boston, some time seeing my dad and other friends in New Hampshire, and a fruitful and productive AHA meeting. The new semester starts tomorrow and with it, I hope, regular posting.

And Now To Charlotte

I am heading to one of my old stomping grounds, Charlotte, for this year's Southern Historical Association annual meeting. If you're going to be there we'll inevitably cross paths in the book exhibit.

Back From Israel/Death Cab For Cutie: Oddest dcat Juxtaposition Ever?

I'm back from Israel and am trying to pull my life back to some semblance of normalcy. There is always something strange about going abroad during the semester. You return and jump right back into the routine and it's as if the travel never happened. The conference was great, I was pleased with my paper, and naturally returning to Israel was great but raised myriad questions and thoughts. I'll be writing about the political situation in the next few days and will keep you posted when I do.

In the meantime, rejoice that the spring will see the release of a new Death Cab for Cutie album. They promise a wholly new departure. Because bands always promise wholly new departures and are conflicted about their last album. It's the oldest rock star trick in the book. Well, after banging groupies by the handful, doing lots and lots of drugs, and drinking Jack Daniels straight from the bottle. Usually at the same time.

Off to Israel

I am off to Israel for eight days and posting may be even lighter than usual. I am giving a paper, "From Apartheid to Liberation: Race, History and South African Historiography," at a conference, "Concepts of 'Race' in the History of the Humanities," at the University of Haifa.

I have not been to Israel in several years and am looking forward to returning and seeing how things there have changed (or, perhaps, how my perceptions have changed). The Israel-Palestine conflict is in the midst of another potential turning point moment that is likely to result in disappointment even as so many of us ardently hope for the alternative.