CES Blog

My friend was wrong, of course (see previous post).  Spain did win the European cup for the first time in 44 years last Sunday.  Had I not been asleep on a couchette from Paris to Madrid I might have taken part in a fiesta as wild as ‘Woodstock, Oktoberfest, and the Kentucky State Fair put together,’ to quote a bleary-eyed native from that state I met on the Metro on the way to work Monday morning. 

No matter though: I made it to Madrid in time for the fiestas surrounding Orgullo Gay.  I hadn’t known that Madrid was the ‘Capital of Gay Europe’ until a few weeks before I left, but there was little mistaking it once I arrived.  The newsstands display more glossy magazines of men in various states of undress than tabloids with the latest disgraced Hollywood starlet.  Where in other cities you might find street vendors selling knockoff sunglasses and Gucci bags, Madrid’s sell rainbow scarves and cowboy hats. (Out of curiosity, has the gay cowboy stereotype always been around, or did Brokeback Mountain just launch a particularly enduring fashion trend?).  So I might have missed one fiesta, but I managed to walk right into another one.

I was confused, though, because I assumed gay pride week was the same worldwide, and last week, a friend and I stumbled onto the Paris Gay Pride Parade.  We had gone in search of a Georgian restaurant a friend had recommended (Pirosmani on Rue Boutebrie in the Latin Quarter – if you find yourself in the area and don’t try their stuffed eggplant, you will have lived a little less fully).  Mid-meal, we were drawn out of the restaurant by the siren song of ‘Blue (da ba dee)’ playing at an altogether too loud volume for 2pm on a Saturday.  We spent and hour or two snapping pictures of especially interesting drag queens – my favorite was dressed in a cropped nun’s habit with rainbow trim and makeup reminiscent of Darth Maul from Star Wars Episode III – and dancing to awful, infectious techno music.  There were a few somber turns: at one point, a foghorn sounded and a bespeedoed man on top of a Mac truck held up a sign saying ‘3 minutes de silence pour les victims de SADI’ (French for AIDS), which, to a moving degree, the thousands of people in the crowd obeyed.  Not long after, a float went by carrying gallows representing each of the countries which still administer the death penalty for homosexuality.  On the whole, however, the event was a positive one: the celebration of inclusivity and, well, pride it was intended to be. 

I was surprised to find Madrid’s gay pride parade less colorful than that of Paris.  From what I saw, there wasn’t much of a nod to serious issues beyond a few placards demanding equal marriage rights worldwide and a puzzling one that read ‘Denying gay rights is GAY!’ The drag queens were not nearly as outlandish, though a person of indeterminate gender dressed in a neon green catwoman suit did press a wrapped condom in my hand.  A bit taken aback, I wondered if I give off a particularly straight vibe or if he/she assumed I was a transvestite.  Or maybe free love was simply the order of the day.

By all means, my first day in London was a disaster. Virgin Atlantic lost my bag, the hostel I booked online was a hole, and none of my London friends answered their phones. Thankfully, my skillz and foresight placed two changes of clothes in my carry-on. The hostel problem was remedied by my comparative shopping and negotiation of several hotels (the key is to pick an independent hotel with the nicest rooms, and throw out a price much lower than the posted rate). At least I managed to find a cell phone and apartment my first day. The owner of the apartment, a Lebanese-American named Gus, even showed me around the area. (Brick Lane=hipster Mecca). The succeeding day was considerably better than the first. After (hopefully) ironing out I started exploring London’s penchant for creating top quality menswear. This week’s destination was Jermyn Street, which might contain more luxury men’s boutiques than anywhere else in the world. After visiting Floris, Dunhill, Thomas Pink, Thurnbull & Aster, and Davidoff, I made an appointment with Naz at Jermyn Street Barbers, who, on July 26^th, promises to give me a trim and a shave in the old-world-fashion. That evening, my London friends finally picked up their phones. I met up with my high school friend, Haley, who is studying Theatre Critiquing at University College London this summer. After several pints, I walked her home, and navigated the complicated London night bus system back to my hotel. I should also mention I am writing this post at 4:15AM. Jet lag is real, bring Ambien.

Cheers,

TH

PS: I am also listening to Lilly Allen’s LDN

When I started thinking about my thesis topic, I knew I wanted it to involve the United States and France.  With the encouragement of professors to pursue “transnational” history – so trendy right now – I was sure there must be a great topic out there, somewhere.  But after six months studying abroad in Paris, I was ashamed to say that I hadn’t quite found it.  The consensus among the professors seemed to lead me toward late 19th-century Paris: the world of writers like Henry James and Edith Wharton, painters like Thomas Eakins and Mary Cassatt, and the captains of the newly formed American bourgeoisie who tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to infiltrate the circles of their Parisian counterparts.  The evidence was certainly there.  In Belle-Époque Paris, there did indeed exist an American “colony” (as French and American newspapers alike called it), and the dynamic between these Francophilic Yankees and the city – its residents sometimes included – seemed promising.

Sitting reluctantly in the Widener reading room in early June, though, I still wasn’t sure where to start.  The expansiveness of the topic overwhelmed me.  “Cultural interchange” could mean so many things – art, literature, science, even business – and it was up to me to create that meaning.  I had one week left before I had to get on a plane for France, and I was in desperate need of direction.  That week, researching on campus, I learned to love the HOLLIS catalog.  One rainy day, I came across an entry for “Radcliffe in France,” a manuscript collection in the Schlesinger Library.  There was hardly any description online, so I went over to the Radcliffe Yard and asked to see it.  The massive box that came out of the reserves turned out to be the keystone of my thesis.  Inside, I found the scrapbooks, letters, diaries, and news clippings of a group of six young Radcliffe alumnae who traveled to France after World War I to help in the relief efforts.  Bluestockings or not, these girls were fastidious letter-writers (almost daily), and record-keepers.  They say Harvard men used to make fun of Radcliffe women for taking notes like “little scribes;” but in this case, I have to thank these Cliffies for producing a painstakingly accurate account of the work they did and the experiences they had in 1920 France.  In addition to this treasure trove of archival material, I discovered several related manuscript collections in both the Harvard Archives and the Houghton Library.  Apparently, relief work in France was pretty popular among the educated elite of the Progressive era – more so, I have realized here in France, than I ever predicted.

Twenty email chains and three days later, I had my entire research trip planned.  I would do half my research in Paris, and the other half in the local archives and museums of Picardie, the French département most devastated by the Great War.  I had people to see and places to go, and I felt much better about the whole thing.  The topic couldn’t be better for me.  I had clinched the transnational component (more like “transatlantic,” which is how the French often speak of Franco-American relations), and I had even incorporated a bit of Harvard-Radcliffe history – a sentimental attachment of mine, especially after Rev. Gomes’s delightful course last spring.  I would get to go back to France – my “third” home, so to speak – and at the same time I would see the country through the eyes of my collegiate predecessors.

While at the Sorbonne, I took a class on World War I, which I have decided now must have somehow nudged me toward this topic.  Plus, it emerges fittingly out of the original idea I proposed.  The Great War brought the Belle Époque to a startling and definitive halt, but the attitudes and connections it had formed manifested themselves throughout the harsher, less-belle years.  It was the Americans who had grown to love Paris, and France at large, who led the first relief efforts as soon as the war broke out – before the United States even entered on the Allies’ side.  Edith Wharton agitated fervently for the end of American isolationist neutrality, and Anne Morgan, daughter of J.P., launched the largest foreign relief organization out of a ruined château near the Somme river.

This past week, I visited that château, and a bunch of other fascinating spots in rural Picardie.  In fact, I’ve been in France for almost four weeks already.  It’s strange to be starting a blog at the end of a trip (I go back to Boston on Thursday), but it should give me some perspective, and allow for a more organized version for you readers.  I’ll try my best to keep up the suspense and sense of adventure, and hopefully the more distance I have, the more the witty analysis will flow – hopefully.  My experience here has been richer and denser than I could have imagined.  So much has happened in such a short time, both in terms of research and in terms of, well, fun.  I’m so thrilled to have received a CES grant for the summer.  It’s given me the chance to prepare well for my thesis – in the future – and also to fill in all the gaps in my past Parisian experience.  Meanwhile, the present – sitting on a café terrasse in the quiet Batignolles square – isn’t so bad, either.

Coming up next: Forays in the card catalog, obscure Paris libraries, factory-esque French universities, and…a masquerade ball in England.

Original date: 29 June 2008

I’ll be working in Spain this summer, but I flew to Paris, where I used to live, to get a cheaper transatlantic flight and to catch up with old friends.  I met one last night in the Marché St Honoré, a quaint square not far from the Avenue de l’Opera which had an alarmingly modern glass brick of a building in the middle.  She and another friend, Caroline, had just seen ‘Definitely, Maybe’, a ‘chic-flic’, to console Caroline, who has just broken up with her boyfriend of two years.  After briefly discussing our personal lives, Caroline turned to me and asked ‘Alors, tu adores George Bush?’  She went on to explain that she fancied herself the only libertarian in France and that, while she disapproved of Bush’s spending habits, foreign policy, actually his entire administration in general, she saw a lot to like in the American Republican party.  I said that she must, then, be happy to have Sarkozy, practically a libertarian by left-leaning French standards, in the Presidency.  She gave me a withering look and I was reminded of the fact that I have yet to meet a French person who has expressed any faith in the political system.  What did she think about Europe, then?, I asked.  And the Lisbon Treaty, which the Irish so recently blocked by voting against it in their national referendum?  (The EU, still lacking a Constitution – the draft proposed in 2005 failed to pass referendums in France and the Netherlands – takes as its legal code a succession of treaties, the most recent of which is the 2001 Treaty of Nice)  It would never pass, she said.  The way she sees it, Europe is doomed to a future of lukewarm alliances between semi-hostile nations who nevertheless realize they have more in common with each other than the rest of the world and therefore will accept small compromises, but only after exhausting every effort to demonstrate they would rather not.  Like, for example, the Irish, who will eventually accept some version of the Lisbon treaty, most likely almost identical to the one 53% of them just rejected.  In sum, Europe can look forward to a future as full of exasperating negotiations as the last 50 years.

Tiring of politics, the discussion moved on to football.  Not to make any gross generalizations, but I’ve found that many of my conversations in France follow this basic pattern: standard greeting (a kiss on each cheek), inquiry into the personal life (do you have a boyfriend?), discussion of politics (plus ça change, toute c’est la même chose), and, finally, football.  Spain beat Russia in the semi-final for the quadrennial European Cup and will be playing Germany tomorrow evening.  I mentioned how frustrated I was with myself for having bought a ticket for the overnight train from Paris to Madrid for Sunday evening and therefore unwittingly ruining my chances to see this potentially historic event with the Madrileños.  Two years ago, I was chaperoning a choir tour in Italy and we found ourselves in Rome the night Italy won the world cup.  After cloistering our charges in their hotel rooms with dire warnings about how dangerous the streets would be - full of drunk soccer hooligans! – a fellow chaperone and I put on as much azure (the color of the Italian jersey) as we could find and hit the streets.  The scene was, as one might predict, absolute bedlam.  Thousands of mopeds and Peugots with twice as many passengers as they should normally hold were packed bumper-to-tire along the avenues.  Blaring horns competed with flag-draped and beer-soaked revelers chanting ‘Italia!’ and the opening lick to the White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army’, which I later learned is the theme music played on TV before soccer games.  I’m not a fan of professional sports and you could not pay me to watch a Red Sox game on TV, but I’ve had quite an affection for European soccer matches since that evening. 

‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ my friend said with a wink.  ‘You won’t be missing anything.  Germany is definitely going to win this one.’

Reassured (falsely), I said goodnight to my friend and met a friend from Harvard who wanted to go dancing.  One thing led to another, and we found ourselves watching the sun rise over Paris from the steps of Sacre Coeur with Nick, a rather drunk American serviceman on leave from Baghdad.  Sitting among the glass shards of wine bottles left over from others’ Saturday night revelry, I asked him how long he had before he went back to Iraq.  ‘I’ve been stop-lossed,’ he said.  ‘Do you know what that means?’  I replied that I wasn’t sure, but from what I understood it meant that soldiers who had served their time were sent back overseas rather than discharged. ‘Exactly,’ he said.  I didn’t press him on it, but I’ve been wondering a lot about the policy recently.  According to Wikipedia, ‘Stop-loss’ is ‘the involuntary extension of a service member’s active duty service under the enlistment contract in order to retain them beyond their initial end of term of service (ETS) date.’  When servicemen enlist, they generally sign a contract obliging them to a fixed term of 2-4 years.  In the fine print, however, is the catch: ‘the President may suspend any provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to any member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the United States’ Title 10, USC Section 12305(a).  Challenges to the legality of the policy are, therefore, difficult, but challenges to the moral rightness of sending those who have already put their lives at risk for their country back into the combat zone involuntarily are gaining ground, no doubt aided by the recent movie ‘Stop-Loss’ and the general discussion provoked by our upcoming election.

I turned to hug Nick, in a completely inadequate gesture of sympathy for his situation, but found he had wandered over to a group of French 20-somethings in order to bum a cigarette.  They asked him what he thought of the war in Iraq.  He drew his eyebrows together in a look of extreme concentration for a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and said, ‘It’s heavy.  Shit.  It’s heavy.’

Not knowing what to say, we watched the rooftops turn from dark gray to silver.  My father once pointed out how, in the early morning twilight, it always seems like the sky is as bright as day, and then the sun actually appears and it’s hard to hold back a feeling of utter joy and contentment with the world.  I’ve always found it to be true, no matter what is on my mind, and this morning was no exception.  I wonder if it worked for Nick.

Before the first day of my internship, all I knew about Pell Frischmann was the contents of the website and that 9 AM would be a good time to arrive. So I got on an 8:02 train with my music and book and soon found myself outside a seeming residential apartment entrance. The winding staircases and maze-like interior only reaffirmed the first impression. I didn’t expect that.

I also hadn’t expected my coworkers in the marketing department (all of them) to be under 30.

Nor had I expected tea several times a day and the department’s search for the best “biscuit.”

And I hadn’t imagined my first day ending with going out for drinks with the department!

Now, a week later, it’s hard to remember exactly what I had expected. My actual work is exactly what I expected – “internal and external marketing.” But I didn’t expect the workplace. So epecially as the only intern, the friendly welcome and joking atmosphere have helped make the strange moments of the odd tasks hilarious (calling the various UK offices to tell them I was sending them brochures to put in their receptions and give to clients when one office objected briefly because they didn’t have a reception). After all, some other summer internships have been tedious not because of particular responsibilities but because the workplace felt isolating.

Anyway, I’m off to Windsor tomorrow!

~Ingrid

(Listening to: Lily Allen ”LDN”) 

The first time I heard the word “sexy” used in relation to academics, it made me giggle. A lot. But apparently it is not uncommon to describe topics that are especially popular to study as sexy. So here I am, with one of the sexiest research topics in Europe: race-related policies in France.

Everybody has an opinion. American media are quite fascinated with the topic: the New York Times has covered Obama’s importance for Black youth in France, the now-infamous Parisian suburbs, France and Algeria, the also-infamous headscarf ban in schools, newly appointed Muslim officials, etc. etc. Not my exact topic, affirmative action in French higher education, which also isn’t a race-based policy per se, but it undoubtedly gets its sexiness from these more high-profile issues.

While a sexy thesis has its advantages, the same sexiness also makes it more challenging me to study. It is all too easy for an American who has grown up with the US Census, a history of Black slavery (and subsequent White guilt), segregation laws, and constant discussions about race relations, to enter France with a number of assumptions. Especially when such assumptions are all over the news. (more…)

In a recent column in the New York Times (link below), Paul Krugman suggested that it may be ‘Old Europe’ rather than India or China that we should look to in order to see at least one part of the future. His point was that Europe shows how wealthy, advanced industrial countries can have high standards of living even with very high energy prices. He contrasts the design of European cities (dense) with American (spread-out) and auto usage (smaller cars and more public transport versus larger vehicles and middle class disregard for mass transit.) What are you noticing about these kinds of patterns this summer? How does your life in Europe differ, if it does, from life in the US? Is there anything else you’ve been struck by about the way Europeans use energy or feel towards environmental issues? We’d love to hear your comments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/opinion/19krugman.html?scp=1&sq=krugman+old+europe+berlin&st=nyt