Administrative - Tumblr Posts

This is me (on a boat, motherf*cker, take a look at me!)

how I'll use my tumblog

I'm unabashedly a nerd in love with all most things history. Like, a super duper awkward, gets-excited-to-see-historians-I've-read-on-TV-shows, always-ends-up-talking-about-the-Civil-War-in-bars nerd. That's why I'm slogging through a PhD in history. Because, grad school clearly isn't innately fun on its own. People who used to look like this are there:

So I'm going to use this tumblog to document and organize my dissertation research as I progress from prospectus-writing through research to final edits. I'm doing this not only to force myself to reflect upon the process as I experience it, but also in the hopes that other historians/specialists/booklovers/nerds will provide feedback and leads for my research.

With that said, I'm changing the placeholder title "En mi tierra" (Spanish for "where I'm from") to "Free D.C." with the sub-title "Black Power and District Home Rule, 1945-1973." To elaborate, my dissertation hopes to examine the ideological connections between the national black power movements and District home rule. I have the general hypothesis that when Washington, D.C., (I hate putting the periods in, especially before a comma, so I'll establish here that from now on "D.C." will be written "DC") became a majority black city in 1950, the century-old movement for District home rule automatically also became black power - based on the idea that both black power and home rule sought to empower Washington's communities to make decisions by and for themselves. I also have a supporting idea that because the District operated in a virtual vacuum of home rule/black power, the city can be used almost as a scientific control group for measuring the success of black power tactics nationwide; in other words, if DC did it and gained political rights, then we should look to see if it had the same effect in other U.S. cities.

Does that make sense? If not, let me know. Because that is the point of this feed, after all.

And this is why I'm writing this dissertation. Because I don't have a senator, and it makes me fucking furious.

The SOPA blackout is an irritating reminder that D.C. residents do not have voting representatives in Congress.

(And, yes, we still occasionally use Microsoft Paint here in the Style section of The Washington Post.)

1. Fucking DUH.

2. I'm fine with the title. I literally have to see a counselor every week to make sure that I am not actually hallucinating this shit. I've never hated school before.

[not sure how i feel abt the title and it being ableist as this experience speaks to that of acquiring or assessing one’s mental health from an introspective space….]

full text here.

The graduate school experience for students of color has been theorized as...

This is about how dissertation work is going this week.

That's actually kind of inaccurate, because during lunch with a fellow grad student (the only other civil rights historian in my department), I came up with chapters for my dissertation (I threw in some explanatory links for the nerd-uninitiated).

1. Pre-1945 District home rule activism 2. 1945-1960 demographic shifts 3. 1945-1960 civil rights activism in the District 4. SNCC, Black Power, and D.C. 5. The Twenty-Third Amendment 6. D.C. gets a School Board and House Delegate 7. The District Home Rule Act of 1973

I rock. And because it's Friday, I think that's enough for one day.

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does this make sense?

Between 1945 and 1973, the District of Columbia underwent changes at a level that it had not experienced since the Civil War transformed the political and social landscape of the city. After dismantling the Jim Crow segregation of schools and public accommodations the Deep South would continue to battle decades later, the city’s governing structure also changed dramatically, with citizens of all races gaining long-denied voting and representational rights. Although Washington had long been home to active movements for civil rights and legislative autonomy from Congress, these movements remained largely separate until the District became a majority-minority city in the 1950s. How did the confluence of these pre-existing rights movements, post-war demographic shifts and the prominence of a national civil rights movement contribute to the District of Columbia’s unprecedented gains in civil and representational rights by 1973?

After going back and looking at it, I think the second sentence is wonky and misplaced, and should be moved, deleted or re-written, but I don't feel like doing it right now. Thoughts?

How I feel about school today.

Well. St. John’s wort certainly does work wonders for dissertation depression. Holla!

For the next time I need a reminder.

womp womp

I need a Rudwick to my Meier. I bet he'd make writing a lot more fun and interesting.

In other news, I hate lit review. It's the part holding up this first prospectus draft, and makes my insides want to die.

Lit review is finished! Now all that's left are three chapter descriptions, citations, and anticipated sources.

Only two more chapter outlines to go! All that's left is chapter 1 on 1945-1960 activism and demographic shifts and chapter 5 on post-riots legislative gains. I can only write about one of these a day so far.

I can't wait to be done.

Funny how a UTI can stop you dead in your tracks for days. Very little writing and very little reading happened this week, although some did. But just sitting or sleeping is uncomfortable.

Back to work on Sunday, probably. I'm so close.

Guess who has two thumbs and finished her first (very good, I think) draft of her prospectus? That's right.

THIS GIRL.

Just waiting for feedback from my committee.

Still waiting for prospectus approval to proceed on the dissertation. So much for my June 1 deadline.