Well, Asad is done. That’s the best thing I can say about that.
Dirty, thirsty and hungry (and not in a minor way having a serious nicotine-fit), I made my way to class for my presentation at 9am for one of the toughest, most terrifying, Foucault-obsessed profs I have ever met. Shaking in my boots, I got there only to find the door was locked!
Fifteen minutes’ worth of extra preparation time while we waited for security to come and unlock that door! A Yom Kippur Day miracle!!
However, this cosmic support was to quickly leave me when I realized that I had completely lost (in the midst of fatigue and blood sugar lows, no doubt) the ability to improvise. Stuck then with 15 pages of barest notes on the book for which I was to give a full analysis, I was able only to read the summary I had prepared. That’s it- I could go no further. There was nothing insightful in my bag of tricks. My charisma was down to nil, and the prof actually turned her back on me while I floundered.
Well, score one there, I guess. She did kindly say that my exegetical training at Mac had clearly been thorough and excellent, and that I had made a very detailed summary of the book. She told me, in a “there-there” sort of way, that it was very good that I could dissect an argument, and that that is a very good way to prepare for class.
She then preceded to tell us all how much we all suck at getting the point of a book and putting it into context of the “broader academic landscape.” (I.e., of course, Foucault.) She then spent an hour listing what I should have said.
Well, I survived, barely, and I am all a-tingle with the lukewarm glow of being adequate.
Yippee… mediocrity… Great.
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