Wednesday’s WIP: Memories, My German Passport & Me

by Erika Dreifus on
8

Grandma & Me at My Sister's College Graduation, 1994
Grandma & Me at My Sister’s College Graduation, 1994
So long as the anticipated snowstorm doesn’t shut down the city, before I head to the day job today, I’m stopping off at the German consulate, where I’m renewing my German passport. When I went online to book my appointment back in November–you need to make one, you can’t handle this by mail–I thought it was really something that the first available appointment was January 22: my German grandmother’s birthday.

As many of you already know, my grandmother–who would be 99 today–was a huge influence on the stories in my collection, Quiet Americans. Which celebrated the third anniversary of its publication a few days ago, too.

And as for my passport, it was the focus of one of my first published essays. The scan quality isn’t great, but I’ve uploaded a copy of “Passport from the Past,” which was published in the Boston Sunday Globe in 1997.

[UPDATE: The city schools (and my office) are open–but transit is dicey and non-essential travels around the city aren’t in the cards this morning. I’m going straight to work and rescheduling the consular appointment. I think that Grandma would approve!]

Sunday Sentence

by Erika Dreifus on
3

Another Sunday in which I participate in David Abrams’s “Sunday Sentence” project, which asks others to share the best sentence(s) we’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”

“As if the humanities were not in sufficiently dire straits, as if our graduates did not already need to struggle to manage their debt and find jobs in a bleak economy, as if public institutions of higher learning had not already seen their budgets slashed over the past few years, you have added fuel to the flames by turning the world’s attention to the ASA’s proclivity to political activism over scholarship and the intellectual exchange of ideas.”

Source: Sharon Ann Musher’s “Why I Left the American Studies Association,” a letter to the ASA leadership republished in The Times of Israel.

(Cross-posted from My Machberet)

Words of the Week: Sharon Ann Musher

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

“As if the humanities were not in sufficiently dire straits, as if our graduates did not already need to struggle to manage their debt and find jobs in a bleak economy, as if public institutions of higher learning had not already seen their budgets slashed over the past few years, you have added fuel to the flames by turning the world’s attention to the ASA’s proclivity to political activism over scholarship and the intellectual exchange of ideas.”

This is just one sentence in Sharon Ann Musher’s “Why I Left the American Studies Association,” a letter to the ASA leadership republished in The Times of Israel. Do read the entire piece.

The Tower Tomorrow Fellowship

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Formerly called the Summer Media Fellowship in Journalism, Strategic Communications and Israel Advocacy, The Tower Tomorrow Fellowship offers a select group of university students (undergraduate and graduate) a challenging summer aimed at educating future journalists, writers and advocacy professionals in research, analysis, writing for publication, strategic communications and media management.

Working with world-class writers and media professionals, Fellows will learn about coverage of Israel and the region, meet with journalists, scholars, and diplomats, and undertake an intensive eight-week course.

I wish that I could apply for this program myself!

The program will take place in Washington and fellowships confer stipends of $2,500. The application deadline is March 21, 2014.