another thursday exhaustion...

another thursday and the two hours in between are always too little... in the morning 10-12 visiting lecture in our american exceptionalism class by Prof. Ostendorf on Multiculturalism with actually really interesting insights - though most of them only really clarified / i.e. really revealed his position in the private meeting afterwards. then - due to that meeting - only 1 hour lunch break which to get soup at the american bagel shop around the corner is hardly enough because the really nice guy working there is even and considerably slower than the Hollerbusch in MQ was or any other bio-place - which seems to have slow movements in their job-descriptions - could ever be...
then the Fluck seminar which catapulted me right back to the beginning of the semester with the difference that by now I don't seem to care anymore to embarrass myself... because Fluck asked on our perception of the Don Pease text we read in terms or the state of exception and transnationalism and from his question it was clear we had a rather different reading experience. Which I voiced ... basically by introducing my interpretation and follow up questions with "We are talking about the essay on his take on Planetary Literature .. right??!?" But Fluck being patient as he is, let me stutter through my objections of the text before politely pointing out the many wrong taken turns in my reading and in the discussion gave a nice reading and then interpretation. And then we ended with the Lacan and Castoriadis positions on the imaginary and it was someone else's turn to make half an ass out of themselves... but in the end we left with rather enlightened ideas about concepts of the imaginary... we did not connect that (I mean Fluck did, but not apparent to me / us) connect that to the overall theme of the semester in which it very logically fits and adds to according to today's opening statement. But the great thing is, he is going to give an even better comprehensive summary at the beginning of next class and until then we also had time to think more and eventually it all makes sense ... at least as long as I listen... once I start to try and reproduce or apply things, I am still more than lost ... who would have thought identity issues could be so complicated and all our attempts to shed the discussion requesting more pressing questions we are forced to admit that all theoretical questions burn down to this key issue in some form or another....
then two hours for post-seminar-discussions with peers, and 3 conference organization meetings before the evening colloquium on Transgendered America ... which was interesting both in terms of the argument but even more in terms of the (rather bad) performance of the speaker in the Q&A ... because while - contrary to the scholars present - I and a colleague were willing to buy his argument, we would have argued and countered totally different ...
on the way home finally some grocery shopping... I love opening hours till 10 pm daily (incl. Sunday) ... so no more breakfast food for dinner as happend these past days with only fruit, jam, butter and one still untouched carrot in the fridge...