The all-this-ness of all this is utterly flippant, to be sure, but I'm beginning to understand the utility of all this as a container for the incomprehensible. We are facing circumstances that periodically cause me to lose my vocabulary. I don't know how to name it without breaking down, and I suspect that this is true of a lot of my colleagues. And so we talk about things like "the current moment" or "the federal funding landscape," ways of signaling what we all know -- that we are living through a fucking horror of our country's own making, the destruction of everything that matters to us, the kidnapping and torture of members of our communities, the completion of the descent into what it no longer makes sense to call anything other than fascism -- without landing our conversation in a place in which it becomes impossible to go on.
I am trying to reckon with all this, and with the desire to wave my hand vaguely over my shoulder without looking too closely at what it's gesturing toward. I have been doing a bit of writing around it, and am hoping that I'll be able to share some of that in the weeks and months ahead. I'm not sure where it's all headed, but it's at least an attempt to be honest with myself about my reactions to what's happening, as well as an expression of hope that we might find our way through together.
I'm a little astonished to be writing this, but my college has posted the news, so it must be true: MSU has named me a University Distinguished Professor. I am honored, and filled with gratitude toward the colleagues who nominated me, and frankly still a bit stunned that this recognition has come my way.
+
I am grateful to have received so much support for the work I've done over the years, both on campus and off, from publishers and funding agencies, from colleagues and collaborators, from administrators, from friends and family. But my work has always been on the edge of so many fields -- not really literary studies, not really media studies, not really digital humanities, not really higher education studies -- that it has perpetually felt as though it was at risk of falling through the cracks. So this is a career milestone of a sort that I never thought I'd reach.
+
I'll also note that my institution, like so many large public R1s, heavily favors engineering, business, medicine, and the sciences; the College of Arts & Letters has been significantly underrepresented in university honorifics in recent years. I am the third University Distinguished Professor to be named in the college since 2003 -- twenty-two years! -- and the two scholars named during that period hold joint appointments with colleges on the STEM side of campus. I collaborate with STEM-leaning folks, and I have been successful in obtaining funding from agencies that are valued in that universe, so I acknowledge that I am recognizable to a university-wide committee in ways that someone more squarely located in a humanities-based discipline might not be. I nevertheless hope that I can find ways to enable this new title to help attune the university at large to the crucial kinds of work being done across the arts and humanities.
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diff --git a/feed/feed.xml b/feed/feed.xml
index 6022d535e8..3c35820c13 100644
--- a/feed/feed.xml
+++ b/feed/feed.xml
@@ -5,11 +5,21 @@
The long-running and erratically updated blog of Kathleen Fitzpatrick.
- 2025-05-31T11:22:25Z
+ 2025-06-26T12:30:07Zhttps://kfitz.info/Kathleen Fitzpatrick
+
+ Distinguished
+
+ 2025-06-26T12:30:07Z
+ https://kfitz.info/distinguished/
+ <p>I'm a little astonished to be writing this, but my college has posted the news, so it must be true: <a href="https://cal.msu.edu/news/kathleen-fitzpatrick-named-a-university-distinguished-professor/">MSU has named me a University Distinguished Professor</a>. I am honored, and filled with gratitude toward the colleagues who nominated me, and frankly still a bit stunned that this recognition has come my way.</p>
+<p>I am grateful to have received so much support for the work I've done over the years, both on campus and off, from publishers and funding agencies, from colleagues and collaborators, from administrators, from friends and family. But my work has always been on the edge of so many fields -- not really literary studies, not really media studies, not really digital humanities, not really higher education studies -- that it has perpetually felt as though it was at risk of falling through the cracks. So this is a career milestone of a sort that I never thought I'd reach.</p>
+<p>I'll also note that my institution, like so many large public R1s, heavily favors engineering, business, medicine, and the sciences; the College of Arts & Letters has been significantly underrepresented in university honorifics in recent years. I am the third University Distinguished Professor to be named in the college since 2003 -- twenty-two years! -- and the two scholars named during that period hold joint appointments with colleges on the STEM side of campus. I collaborate with STEM-leaning folks, and I have been successful in obtaining funding from agencies that are valued in that universe, so I acknowledge that I am recognizable to a university-wide committee in ways that someone more squarely located in a humanities-based discipline might not be. I nevertheless hope that I can find ways to enable this new title to help attune the university at large to the crucial kinds of work being done across the arts and humanities.</p>
+
+ All This
@@ -130,18 +140,6 @@
2025-01-31T20:00:18Zhttps://kfitz.info/holding-space/<p>Here I was, super happy with my return to blogging in 2024. I wasn't crazy prolific or anything, but I did manage to post <em>something</em> every month except for April. What happened in April? <a href="https://kfitz.info/things-that-happened/">Kind of a lot.</a> But nothing compared with January. Someday I hope to have the time and space necessary to write about at least part of it, but that day is not today. Today, all I can do is close out January by trying to hold a bit of space toward a better moment. May that better moment come soon, for all of us.</p>
-
-
-
- Finite
-
- 2024-12-22T15:54:17Z
- https://kfitz.info/finite/
- <blockquote>
-<p>You have to accept that there will always be too much to do; that you can’t avoid tough choices or make the world run at your preferred speed; that no experience, least of all close relationships with other human beings, can ever be guaranteed in advance to turn out painlessly and well—and that from a cosmic viewpoint, when it’s all over, it won’t have counted for very much anyway.</p>
-<p>And in exchange for accepting all that? You get to actually <em>be</em> here. You get to have some real purchase on life. You get to spend your finite time focused on a few things that matter to you, in themselves, right now, in this moment.</p>
-<p>— Oliver Burkeman, <em>Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals</em></p>
-</blockquote>
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/feed/masto.xml b/feed/masto.xml
index f31ab9dcf9..e9a2bcd5f5 100644
--- a/feed/masto.xml
+++ b/feed/masto.xml
@@ -545,13 +545,21 @@ pre[class*="language-diff-"] {
The long-running and erratically updated blog of Kathleen Fitzpatrick.
- 2025-05-31T11:22:25Z
+ 2025-06-26T12:30:07Zhttps://kfitz.info/Kathleen Fitzpatrickkfitz@kfitz.info
+
+ Distinguished
+
+ 2025-06-26T12:30:07Z
+ https://kfitz.info/distinguished/
+ I'm a little astonished to be writing this, but my college has posted the news, so it must be true: MSU has named me a University Distinguished...
+
+
All This
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index b14d2c6257..1cb82414ef 100644
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+++ b/index.html
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
-