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Read my book, TEACHING BEAUTY IN DeLILLO, WOOLF, AND MERRILL (Palgrave Macmillan; forthcoming), co-authored with Jennifer Green-Lewis. VISIT MY BRANCH CAMPUS AT INSIDE HIGHER ED





UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Thursday, May 11, 2006

UD Blaine Blogs!!!!

Well, folks here I am standing up in front of my very own exam room -- Rome Hall 110 to be exact!! Already some of my BRILLIANT students have come up to my desk and asked the sort of questions you only ask of the talented, multi-advanced-degreed, peace-spreading adventuress Ms. UD!!! I'm so excited that they feel so at peace, so comfortable, in my class... They can ask me anything.

And if I may I'd like to share something one of them just whispered to me as she approached my desk: "Ms. UD, I wanted to tell you how strongly I support your decision to run ...those pictures... on your blog. I know people have been giving you a hard time about it, but to me it's just another sign of how open, free and... peaceful you are! YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE." That's not from me, Dear Reader; it's from one of my students. So you can shove it.



Delete that "shove it." I assure you that despite occasional outbursts which would be understandable even in a saint like Saint Theresa or a truly great man of peace like Gandhi, I'm at peace with what's happened to me. With the way sexist warmongers who fail to see the connection between nudie pix and the necessity, right now, to withdraw all of our troops from Iraq, have unceasingly sought to ridicule me, to attack me, to belittle me, to wipe me off the face of the internet! Well, let me tell these petty people, shivering with fear at the thought of their own corporeality, that they have not gotten to me. I pray for them every day - not a Christian prayer, or a Jewish prayer, or a Moslem prayer, or any mainstream institutionalized religious prayer, for I admit I am not moved by organized religion -- but rather a very personal, nature-based prayer that these tormented souls who have not attained my inner tranquillity, whose Puritanical American roots continue to choke and twist them into angry juvenile motherfuckers [delete that "motherfuckers" -- I'm fine with this], will someday, perhaps after having read my blog carefully -- or the book I'm trying to publish based on it (HI PUBLISHERS! ARE YOU LISTENING?), know the enlightenment I have known.

Ah, yes, I can feel my pulses calming now... I can actually feel my entire self, body and soul, entering gradually into the peace that only those who have truly come to understand the sick reality of American culture, the obnoxious masculinist crap that world-historical figures like myself have to put up with, can know...

Oh, here comes another student! Let's hear what she has to say: "Ms. UD, in publishing those photos on your blog you have subverted the hegemonic professorial dynamic of our time. You have stood on its head the professor/student hierarchy. You have said: Look at me! I may be a multi-advanced-degreed expert on Jon-Benet, but underneath all of my laurels and distinctions I'm just a person, just like you! If you cut me, do I not bleed???"

I want to thank this student, and Bill and Rudy and Jemima and Gloria and all of the other wonderful people who've supported me in this stressful time. I only pray that you, Dear Reader, can come to know the same rich manifold bliss in your own personal life that I have come to know in mine. And no, you don't have to be a Ph.D. like me to attain the happiness and peace I've attained! Even very simple people can get to the special place I've gotten to -- just keep reading my blog...