Housekeeping

[ajnabieh]

The reason I've been off the grid, and am only sporadically going to be around for the next 3-4 weeks, is a fabulous one: I recently accepted a (n extremely awesome) position as a visiting instructor at Hobart and William Smith colleges, and am currently packing up everything I own in preparation for moving to Western New York, in addition to trying to finish the next (and last?) draft of my dissertation before we leave.  So, despite the fact that it's Ramadan, Islamophobia has taken a massive turn for the stupid as hell lately (surprise surprise), there are terrifying massacres in Syria, Egyptian activists just left Tahrir again, and Libya is in a protracted state of civil war, I'm probably not going to be saying anything smart (or not-smart) about it. These are some quick hits before I put my head back in my work.

The one place I will be with regularity is twitter, where I am ajnabieh.  95% of my tweets are either retweets or things I'm reading, since I'm not collecting super fascinating data at the moment (and I save tweeting about lunch for Facebook).  If people are interested in a regular link spam from me, I'm more than happy to do a daily or weekly twitter-import.

I wanted to signal boost is the Fast for Yemen being sponsored by Yemen Peace News.  Yemen, along with the Sudan, are the only Arab countries on the list of least developed countries; Yemen is also in the midst of a political crisis/revolution (depends who you ask).  Food aid is desperately needed.  Ramadan is, traditionally, a season for giving and for feasting as much as fasting--G. Willow Wilson on twitter called it "Eat, Pray, Don't Eat,"--and this project calls for people, Muslim and non-Muslim, to remember Yemen during this time.  I haven't fasted yet, but I know I'll be giving, probably fasting a little, and certainly making du'as for Yemen this month.

And a side project.  Academichic, the one fashion blog I read, is closing up shop for very good reasons.  But this got me thinking about how much I wish there were more people online talking about fashion and personal aesthetics and similar things with a queer feminist/politically radical sensibility.  So, if anyone either knows people having these conversations, or, say, would be interested in trying to develop a group blog covering this ground, let me know.  I've got a lot of new teaching outfits to overanalyze for the sake of Internet feminism this fall.  I'm just saying.

Comments

[ajnabieh]

Shukran! I'm excited...and only freaking out a little bit about having to move everything I own. (We've been settled for six years now, during which time we had a wedding and a baby...that's a lot of stuff.)