Interview with Lenora Hanson

MF: All right, my name is Megan Falater, and I am interviewing Lenora Hanson. Could you introduce yourself?

LH: Yes, I'm Lenora Hanson. English student in the graduate department.

MF: Great, and we are conducting an oral history interview today on Saturday September 29, 2012, regarding Lenora's experiences at the 2011 protests at the Capitol regarding the Budget Repair Bill in early 2011.

LH: Yes, that sounds right.

MF: Just to get started, Lenora, could you tell us a little bit about why it was that you chose to attend graduate school?

LH: Sure, yeah. Well, I was an English student, an undergrad, and I think from...well, yeah...a pretty early time in undergrad, I had really great teachers. I thought that the work that they did was really exciting. I thought it was something I wanted to pursue. I think also I came from a relatively--uneducated is maybe the wrong word--but not a family that was incredibly supportive or interested in higher education, so I think I felt like 00:01:00I wasn't completely sure what to do with an English degree after leaving undergrad and combined with an interest in what my own professors were doing. I think it felt both like the only thing to do and the thing that I wanted to do at the same time, so I took a year off between undergrad and my Master's program. And then did a two year terminal degree always with the understanding or impression that I would move on to a Ph.D. program. So I think it's a little...it's a little strange because I now don't necessarily find myself totally convicted. I mean, I'm not one of those people that believes that this is the only thing in the world I could do. But I'm also at the same time very 00:02:00passionate about the work that I do, and I love being in graduate school. So I guess I have felt a little paradoxical or something since undergrad, with this kind of sense that I really love the work and I really enjoy doing it. But there's also kind of another side probably that just has to do more of the fact that I'm not completely sure what else I would do with my life to a certain extent. So yeah and I think also graduate school I think graduate school for me has been largely about just being in a very rare situation in which one is able to think about a lot of questions and problems that a lot of people want to think about, I think, but don't have the time or the luxury. And it certainly is a luxury to get to do this. So I think it feels more like a time to incubate to a certain extent and figure out...understand my own place in the world to a 00:03:00large extent and in a way that I feel very, very lucky to do. So, yeah. That was a ramble-y answer.

MF: No, that's great. What made you choose UW-Madison in particular for graduate study?

LH: Largely because of the professor that I work mainly with, Sarah Guyer. I had...actually...did well on my applications and had eleven other institutions to look at. This was an incredibly expensive application process. But, yes, Sarah was really wonderful in reaching out to me. I also work in an area of literary studies that is relatively small in terms of the critical approach that's taken to the literary period. And Sarah is one of the few people who takes that literary critical approach. So I think it was the combination of feeling like I would have someone here to really work with closely and someone who is doing the kind of work that I hadn't been able to 00:04:00find at a lot of other universities. And also the town itself actually--the city itself I should say--I didn't actually get to visit here beforehand. I did visit a number of other campuses and just...I mean, I guess this probably would be good material for the tourism bureau or something like that. I had read a lot about the kind of biking culture here, and I knew I didn't want to have a car when I was here and just certain kind of lifestyle benefits that come with living in Madison, I think, that people tend to be really happy about. And so that was actually a big factor as well in choosing the university.

MF: Great, and you went to another institution for your Masters' degree. What institution was that?

LH: the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. So yeah I had a little 00:05:00Midwest experience before I came here, which I actually like. I am a fan of the Midwest culture.

MF: Can you tell us a little bit more about what you study?

LH: So I study British romanticism largely from the, I guess, the time period between the 1780s and 1830s in England and Great Britain in particular, although I am branching out to kind of a more continental romanticism, particularly in Italian and German. So the main authors I work on are the canonical authors in romanticism. I haven't been much of a part of kind of--there's been a large recovery revival in romanticism, but I'm particularly interested in in Wordsworth and Shelley and Blake and Coleridge. So I work on them mainly. And then I also work on a critical perspective from, I guess, what is most easily 00:06:00identifiable as a deconstruction or post-structuralism and the way in which post-structuralism has modified mock-Marxist theories of subjectivity and ontology and economy as well. So I think--trying to think broadly about the linguistic project that is ongoing in Romanticism at the same time that I still want to keep that linguistic project grounded and responsive to economic transformations of the nineteenth century as well.

MF: What is it that drew you to this particular study?

LH: Well, I started focusing on romanticism in undergrad because there wasn't actually an American--I was originally interested in transcendentalism--and there wasn't any one at my institution who was really working on that. So my next interest was romanticism and I was initially 00:07:00interested in it because of the failure of revolution in romanticism and the romantic period in England in particular. After 1688, they don't have anything like the French Revolution or series of German and French or Haitian revolutions that are ongoing in the 19th century. And so I think I was fascinated with questions of the relationship between the poetics and aesthetics of the romantic period and how we might understand that as a way--or think about that as a way to understand the case or the situation of revolution and radical politics in in England at the time. And I've continued to work on it because well, for that reason as well, even though that was a really early one but also because it's such a rich period for thinking about aesthetics and contemporary formations of poetry because so much blank verse and free verse and aesthetic theory itself is 00:08:00born essentially in romanticism. And so it's a really interesting period for trying to think about the relationship between aesthetics and politics, which is broadly what I would say that interests are in working literary studies anyway.

MF: Great. So you've certainly given us some history of your academic experience. Can you say a little bit about what you see your own experience with politics?

LH: Yes, sure, it was very minimal up until I moved here actually. I come from Birmingham, Alabama. So I mean I grew up in in the south, obviously, where the only union I had probably ever heard of before I really came here was the Steelworkers Union, which is still alive and somewhat well in the south. So I didn't grow up in a culture that was politically engaged, and that's not to say 00:09:00that aren't politically engaged cultures in the south, but certainly not in my family, which was very religious. And if there was a political inclination in my upbringing it was to a very fundamentalist conservative notion of politics. So, yeah, there wasn't much of one. Not in a direct way. I mean, when I was--I moved out of my house when I was seventeen with my sister and we started working pretty constantly from there on out in the restaurant business and the bar business while we went to undergrad. So I think certainly in undergrad there were political issues that I became aware of and interested in, but I was always working so much that there was no time or a place really for really direct involvement, and I think that I didn't really even know how to do that at the time anyway. I mean, it's just strange how being politically active is an acculturation anything else, I think. So, I mean, but at the same time, I think 00:10:00my undergrad education, because it was a liberal arts education and all of those kinds of things, certainly kind of laid a foundation for being very concerned about social justice issues and being concerned with the relationship between individuals in a society and political system and trying to come to terms of the way in which individuals can intervene in what seem to be incredibly large apparatuses of power. So I wasn't involved really in undergrad in any kind of direct way and nor would I say at all in my Master's program either. But I think all of that kind of, certainly, provided an interesting mixture of reasons why I became involved when I moved here. I think to a large extent certainly having worked in the restaurant business or the service industry I guess in the south 00:11:00where there is absolutely no sense of collective wellbeing and where there's a lot of insecurity, obviously, in the service industry workforce. Lots of people who are struggling with poverty and drug issues and family issues and all of those reasons are reasons that obviously bring people to the restaurant industry and keep them there, but I think, you know, that certainly made me hyper aware of the real shortcomings and disempowerment that can arise out of a political context like in the south where there is there are no models for collective action or for even a sense of thinking that one could articulate their concerns or their voices to someone who employs them in a way that will be effective and 00:12:00wouldn't simply lead to being fired. So I think that was always impressed upon me in even in unconscious or implicit ways when I was working for, well, twelve or thirteen years off and on in the restaurant business so I mean that's not political action but I just say that as a kind of background for I think we're primed to me to be interested when I came here. So, yeah, I became involved with the TAA immediately when I came to the campus because I was interested in the notion of bargaining with an employer and I think, yeah, I was just really ready. I mean, I had spent enough time I think a) being exploited as a worker for sure but b) not doing a lot of reading of political philosophies and Marxism and all of these kinds of things. And I think once I got here I just kind of really wanted to make a decision to parlay that into some something outside of 00:13:00just an intellectual realm or personal history of employment or something like that.

MF: Do you recall when you first came to the UW-Madison campus how it is that you learned of the TAA?

LH: Yeah, I believe that I probably learned about it at the benefits fair that I went to. There was a table that was set up, and I walked by and talked to Alex Hanna, actually, who was one of the co-presidents during the protests and was really interested in what they were doing and had intentions of kind of going to a few of the early social functions but didn't. And then, oh, I went to kind of an intro to the union meeting at the office one day and from there just got really interested in the bargaining team and the bargaining committee. So I sat in, I mean I wouldn't say that I was on the 00:14:00bargaining team because I just didn't know what to do, but sat it on the bargaining with the bargaining committee in fall 2010, which was actually the last semester we were ever able to bargain, so well timed. And kind of just started figuring out the ropes of the Union through that body in particular.

MF: Great. You certainly in coming in during the fall of 2010 and might not necessarily have very much to dwell on in terms of a before period prior to the protests. Has your association with the TAA changed over the course of your years of graduate study?

LH: Oh yes for sure. I mean that first semester I would just say that I was kind of, oh, what is that word, not tangential, kind of an outside participant. I would say I went to the bargaining committee 00:15:00meetings, and I was really interested in those and went to those on a regular basis but kind of fell off towards the end of the semester. And yeah my relationship with the TAA has drastically changed since the protest. I mean, I'm co-chair the Steward's Council now. I mean, I would say, you know, I spend a lot of time during my week working on TAA activities in large parts I'm sure because of my experience in the protest and my experience in just learning a lot more about graduate labor and graduate unions and the level of antagonism towards thinking about graduate students as workers and laborers but also about the political efficacy and importance of the impact that graduate unions have on the union movement and in general in the U.S. So I think all of that was kind of 00:16:00wrapped up in the education of being in the protests themselves. And I also just have...I would say like my social network is in the TAA as well now because of the time I spent in the Capitol, I mean, it became something...the TAA has become something that isn't just about just about political work at all actually or about o joining a committee and being there intermittently and doing it because I feel like it's a good thing to do as a citizen. Or something like that but a lot of my close relationships grew out of being in the capital and sharing, certainly the first few months after the protests there, you know, it was a lot of emotional and psychological solidarity, you know, joking about being in the Capitol, being able to talk to people who had been there, you know, like seeing people all over Madison you only actually knew from being in the Capitol. So, yeah, there was certainly a social and psychological dimension and I think that solidified a level of intersubjectivity or intimacy or something 00:17:00with people that I think has certainly lasted far beyond the protests themselves and gone beyond what people traditionally think of union membership as, I think.

MF: Did you have an assistantship in Spring 2011 when the protests began?

LH: Yeah, the English department here--and I'm sorry about my voice. I was out last night and I'm was having to yell basically to talk to my friend, so it's a little gravelly.

MF: We can certainly take a break if you need.

LH: Oh no no I'm just, I'm sure it's going to have a little Tom Waits-ish on the recording.

LH: Yes, so the English department here, I've really only recently found out it's kind of an anomaly in that they offer long term packages. So they're four 00:18:00years I believe. So we don't have to worry about getting appointment year by year, which I know is the case, or even semester by semester for some people. So everyone comes in, I think there are sometimes one or two people who actually don't get their first year funded, but their next few years are. When you come into the English department you P.A. for your first year for professors and then ostensibly you move on to a TA positions. I've been a PA since I've been here, though, for my advisor. So yeah when I came in my first year of PAing actually was kind of the ideal PA situation people joke about where there's not much to do, so that was actually really great particularly during the Capitol. But, yeah, I had a 33.3 percent appointment with Sarah Geier and Terry Kelly in the English department both those first two semesters I was here.

MF: So we have a 00:19:00sense for the work that you were doing during your first year of graduate study when the protests began. Could you tell us how it was that you became involved in the protests or became present at the Capitol during this time?

LH: Yes sure I mean I had been keeping...I'd been kept up to date with what was going on with possible union legislation and what was called the nuclear option at the time so I had heard a lot about that from becoming more involved towards I guess the end of fall 2010. So I actually remember very specifically that I had gone to the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery this particular evening, I guess it was in late November or early December I think is late November, for a talk on Wiki Leaks or 00:20:00a panel discussion on Wiki Leaks and I was really mixed about going to the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery because unions on campus have had a very complicated and antagonistic relationship to the WID because it's a public private venture and the private side doesn't use union labor and all other kinds of questions about what private institutions role should be on campus. So I felt really bad for going there, but I really wanted to see the panel and when I walked out I had a number of missed calls from one of our staffers saying that they had just actually gotten an early version before it was actually made public of what the legislation was actually going to be on the restriction on bargaining for unions and so a) I felt like that certainty had something to do with the fact that I had gone to the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery that day, 00:21:00but yeah, I left that building that night and went to TAA office that evening and spent hours and hours with people talking about what the response was going to be, trying to get more information, and just starting the whole process of organizing and from that evening on I would say I spent a lot of my nights until the protest at the office and that was, yeah, because shortly there after we held the GMM that addressed this issue and had one hundred fifty or one hundred sixty people come out. And I was just very catalyzed to try and start working on this really early, and so I actually ended up canceling plans to go home and to the MLA over Christmas and stay here the whole time instead to organize with people who stayed over Christmas and also just try to prepare materials and 00:22:00plans for coming into January for the spring semester.

MF: You mentioned the nuclear option, and I'm curious about what this nuclear option might. I was hoping if you might be able to talk about that to make sure we're all on the same page.

LH: Yeah, sure. So from what I remember, when Scott Walker campaigned for the gubernatorial office and when came in, he had certainly always made claims that he was going to take a hard line with unions and had suggested once or twice, I think, that he was really interested in totally disenfranchising and delegitimizing unions. But on the whole, I think most people felt like he was going to make some minor modifications, ask people to pay more for their health care, and that would kind of be the extent of the 00:23:00damage. But what became kind of, like, known as the nuclear option was precisely exactly what happened which was a complete curtailing over the items that could be bargained for so whereas we used to be able to bargain over things like health care and wages and a whole range of issues. Now, the nuclear option reduced us down to only being able to negotiate over wages capped at inflation. And so where we used to have a very robust list of items that we could address through negotiation, now we only have one very ineffective one. So I mean it was called the nuclear option, I think, because people--it was so drastic, but also because people really weren't convinced that Walker's first assault would be that extreme. I think people thought that it would be a really unwise political 00:24:00move on his part, which, clearly, it was. But, yeah, I think that most people just felt like there was no way that he would drop that kind of bomb to a certain extent just due to the nature of union history in Wisconsin and also just the fact that it's such an extremist move. So I just, yeah, I remember it being called that really early on, particularly in the context of people saying, you know, that "yeah, it's the nuclear option; it would be his last...it would be the last resort not the first assault."

MF: OK. Thank you. So we certainly have a sense of what your Fall 2010 semester looked like. That even over your Christmas break you canceled some plans to go home or go to the MLA conference as well over that winter break. So what was your Spring 2011 semester?

LH: It was crazy, for sure, but it was great. I mean, I will say, because of the PA 00:25:00situation I was in, I had a very flexible schedule and, because I'm in a humanities department, I have faculty who, if not directly supportive, you know, in some ways that I would like them to be, are very supportive in terms of--were very supportive--of my being in the Capitol as much as I was. So that was never...it was never a work issue for me. The spring was mostly taken up--the early spring--was mostly taken up by doing a lot of work to organize the February 14th rally, the I Heart UW rally, so we held a kind of meeting after meeting to plan some kind of event that would, yeah, that would mobilize people on campus here against, primarily that march was directed towards budget cuts 00:26:00and education cuts, but the idea was certainly to mobilize people in kind of a direct way to start building, I think, towards what we knew was going to happen. I also like haphazardly ended up kind of, I guess, organizing or chairing an ad hoc group within the union called--we jokingly called it the Action Jackson committee, but it was people who were kind of cobbled together, most of which including myself had not done union organizing before, but were people who stayed over the winter or were willing to get involved very very early on in January and February who assisted in preparing for the February 14th rally. So we met kind of on a weekly basis essentially partially doing the work that I would later find out Steward Council does, which is why I'm co-chair of Steward Council now . But we were really trying to collect information for people in 00:27:00their departments and send it out to keep people as updated as possible on what could possibly happen. So, yeah, a lot of my spring was dedicated to that. I was still, I mean, in three classes and doing a little bit of PA work, but certainly not the full twelve hours a week from what I recall. So, I mean, my academic life was relatively normal up until the protests actually started, I would say. I mean, I was going to all my classes and doing all my work and then spending a lot of, yeah, a lot of time at the TAA office. So yeah, I think early on in the spring, it was pretty normal. Of course once the protest broke out, or I would actually say probably the week before that protests actually broke out or the week before the February 14th rally, myself and a number of other TAA members and a number of undergraduates who work with the Student Labor Action Coalition on campus (SLAC), were kind of in the office until 3 in the morning every 00:28:00evening preparing for the February 14th rally. I certainly remember having a lot of frustration with my own department at the time because they weren't really paying attention to what was going on, and I didn't really feel like they felt like this is an exigent situation until maybe the February 14th rally because we had only really kind of prior to that learned the full extent of what was going to happen in terms of their extraction of bargaining rights, so I remember doing a lot, being in the TAA office a lot, and working and being very frustrated with kind of seeing happy, normative Facebook posts from people in my department and kind of thinking I wasn't really sure what, like, world they were living in at the time because my whole world was absorbed by this now, so it's partially narcissistic as well, as all these things are. But, yeah, so the week before was 00:29:00a really intense work at the office, and then after the February 14th protest, everything kind of shifted into high gear obviously because we started occupying the Capitol on the 15th from what remember. Yeah, because it was day after that march. So that kind of turned everything upside down and that was when we started calling for teach outs. A lot of my professors were very amenable to that and at least moved classes off campus. And I just...I really didn't go to the classes. Well, for about a week and a half, I would go to some of my classes while we were occupying the Capitol during the day, but I mean, I was completely sleep deprived, and so it was just kind of there in physical presence. Yeah, again, my professors were very supportive, I think. So yeah I think the Capitol 00:30:00was just a very abnormal time, and I, you know, I'm sort of...I certainly feel very lucky that I didn't run into some of the problems that other people did run into by spending so much time there. Ironically, I was taking a course on Marx that semester as well. So our professor was totally the fine with kind of suspending class for almost two weeks. And then the end of the semester, yeah, was kind of a lot of catch up work. I mean, obviously, the TAA continued to be a huge part of my week on probably. I mean, I guess I would say that ten to fifteen hour basis, which is what it is I would say, sometimes more than that...

LH: But at the end of the semester was actually really good. I mean, strangely enough, I wrote one of the best papers I have in grad school, which was published last semester. And, yeah, my courses actually ended up wrapping up pretty well. I mean, I certainly didn't absorb materials the way that one 00:31:00normally absorbs materials during the course work, but I think that, in conjunction with taking some specific kinds of courses that I was taking at the time and the protests, I started thinking very differently about the way that I wanted to write about things and what my stakes in literary studies were so in some strange ways, while I didn't pick up on all of the details and the content of the courses that I was in, I think that it was really transformative in terms of thinking about my place in graduate school and really trying to think about the relationship between my experiential world or my subjective world outside of graduate school and the work that I did in graduate school. So, in a lot of ways, it's actually really an interesting academic time to be in as well, and I think that's the most of the spring.

MF: Great. So you were spending quite a bit of your time at the Capitol during these protests. What was that like for you?

LH: Oh it was totally exciting. I mean, for the most part, I would say it was the first time I'd ever, I mean I think most people, had seen anything like that. It was really exhilarating in terms of this feeling that we were just kind of always being updated on what was going on. So there was kind of this continual sense of importance and urgency for being there as if there were like you know breaking news every few minutes or something. Yeah, so, a lot of it was really, I mean for me, really wonderful and inspiring in a way that I'm sure it is for others as well. I certainly remember it kind of being very impacted by 00:33:00the difference between the daytime and nighttime in the Capitol, and there being all of this energy, and all of that kind of loud protesting during the day, and then just kind of these amazing moments of, you know late night when there were just bodies like littered around the Capitol sleeping, and, you know, quiet conversations kind of. And that was when you really also see all of the posters and the paraphernalia that were up on the walls when people were kind of on the ground and so just kind of this amazing thing to stand at the top of the top level and see this incredibly packed space that was also very quiet and kind of eerie in some ways. So I definitely remember just noticing this kind of amazing transition from the day in and the night in the Capitol. I mean it's also very hard in some ways, I think, like for most people who were working in what was 00:34:00came to be called the War Room in the Capitol where the TAA had been essentially given a space and a legislative room by, I believe by, AFSCME. Maybe it was the...it may have actually been SEIU. But anyway we were given a space to essentially coordinate, you know, TAA operations but also assist in any way we could with anyone else. So I think that was a really intense experience because there was a sense that we were doing something really important and worthwhile. But no one there was trained to be doing this kind of work, so I think sometimes, I mean for me at least, I certainly felt sometimes like I didn't know what I was doing, and I wasn't really sure that I was doing anything at all sometimes. And so I think that combined with exhaustion got to be a little emotionally difficult or emotionally intense as well. Just the sense that like 00:35:00there's all this important stuff going on and, as a graduate student, I think you want to feel like, you know, you have some kind of skill set or skill base to respond to that, when at the same time we're actually not equipped through graduate education to know how to respond immediately in political situations, I think. So. But yeah I mean I was still really incredibly, yeah, incredible experience to be in nonetheless. I mean, there were obviously strained relationships. People were exhausted, and I think, I'm sure you've heard this before, many of the female activists who were in the Capitol began to really feel a kind of gender imbalance or disparity in terms of how we were speaking to one another and in terms of who felt like they were taking charge or could take charge or have the right to take charge in a way, which I think we handled 00:36:00relatively well. It kind built up to the minor point of crisis and then I think we were able to kind of address it in a way that allowed it to be manageable. And I think, yeah, for sure there was a sense of trying to articulate or figure out the relationship between the TAA as a graduate Union and all of ourselves as graduate students and our relationships with larger unions who came in very soon after we initially started occupying the Capitol. So, you know, on the one hand, I think we had a lot of street credit for really being the ones who stuck around at night. But, in other ways, I think we were constantly trying to articulate our differences from the ways in which other unions functioned or made decisions or what their interests were and what our interests were and what we believe to 00:37:00be the importance of being in the Capitol versus their interest in being in the Capitol. So, yeah, I think that the experience itself was one that was very affirmative for me in terms of understanding the capacity of populism, populist politics, and that, you know, just a really amazing effective and political and emotional power that comes out of large groups of people who refused to leave a place in a very nonviolent kind of way and that was then mixed with a really intense education, also, in the difficulties of maintaining that kind of...that kind of Democratic populist action with institutions that had been in place for 00:38:00a long time, union structures that have been in place for a long time, gender inequalities and gender disparities that we oftentimes are able to negotiate in a in an easier way in less intense experiences. So yeah I guess it was those two things at the same time: a real sense of elation and excitement and then also a new comprehension of the difficulties of maintaining something like that first thing in the face of...in the face of institutions and structures and power dynamics that don't just go away because of really rare historical events.

MF: Um, to the extent that you would wish to discuss that during your interview, 00:39:00could you say a little bit more about what these gender dynamics were or what some of the concerns were that you mentioned some of the female activists had?

LH: Yeah, sure. Well, I would say that in general, at least the times I've been active with a TAA, we've had a very strong contingent of female leadership and participation, which makes it very different in a lot of unions, I think, but we have very strong female activists. I would say, you know, most of the people that I know on our executive board...the majority of our executive board is made up of females. Not all, I mean, like, it's not an eighty to twenty percent ratio or something, but there certainly are more women oftentimes in our committees and on our committees than men. And I think that one thing that happened during the Capitol was that certain people who hadn't been very active with the union before, or hadn't been around in the months of preparation from like December up until February, suddenly kind of showed up, and they were very excited as we all 00:40:00were about what was going on but didn't acknowledge the fact that other people had been doing a lot of work to kind of prepare for what happened on February 14th. And so, I think, there just kind of like a general assumption of masculinity in the sense that that there were a few men who wanted to come in and get something done, and by coming in and getting something done they oftentimes displaced or hurt or upset or insulted people who had already been there doing things for a long time. So it's kind of like a mixture of wanting to be part of this incredible historical moment that was going on but also a kind of ignorance or a blindness to being sensitive towards other people's place in 00:41:00the Capitol and other people's place in the TAA. That was the main thing that I remember. I mean, there were also just random instances of condescension in some ways too. But, yeah, I mean, I explicitly remember that there were about eight or ten women that I knew in the Capitol that...we all kind of picked up on this at the same time, and even had a dinner one night, I think, kind of just talking about it and wanting to address it, which we did do in a very open way in a meeting at one point soon thereafter. So, yeah, I think that it was often, you know, it's a very classic kind of situation wherein women who are doing work aren't actually recognized as doing work. Somehow that gets alighted or obfuscated at a particular moment, and all the work that's gone in to a particular event or whatever kind of thing that's gone on suddenly becomes not 00:42:00work, and they become something else. And the work that the men will now do or something like that becomes the real work, and I also think that a lot of the women who are active in our union including myself are not proprietary or territorial about why we're in the union and what we're interested in doing in the union. So I don't...I think that a lot of us weren't interested in kind of the press that was coming out and the acknowledgment that was coming out about the TAA and hadn't been involved in it for those reasons. And I think that there was a little bit more of that bound up with some, not all of them, I mean, we have a wonderful male activists, and this is by no means an indication of the dominant majority of them. It was really kind of a lot of people, I think, a number of people who hadn't been active before and were more interested in kind of the idea of the TAA that was being promoted at the time, which was getting a 00:43:00lot of press and was getting a lot of recognition for activities. MF: Thank you. That was very helpful. So you mentioned that while you were in the Capitol, you were often receiving breaking news while protesting yourself. How was that information disseminated to you, how were you getting those news updates?

LH: I think we worked really hard as a group to constantly provide information for people. I would say that it's one of the benefits of having had a union structure in place, a graduate union structure in place, beforehand because it is very easy to get information out to people. We have a strong and active Stewards Counsel that was just absolutely kind of invaluable in terms of getting 00:44:00information out to most of the departments on campus because even stewards who hadn't been active for a long time suddenly, you know, became very active again and were sending information out. I think...I have to sneeze, I think. Excuse me.

MF: Bless you.

LH: But, yeah, so I think because the grad union, the way I understand it after, I think, the last strike really felt like it was very important to have a really vibrant and Democratic base for the union, that the stewards council, you know, had been established as a very kind of robust body. And so, yeah, I think that was really one of the best ways that we were able, at least initially early on, to get information out to people. In the Capitol itself, I think it stayed that way, but we are we really also relied on Facebook a lot for sending... for posting information constantly. And what is now the 00:45:00Defend Wisconsin site as well, which was started by some really awesome activists and journalism students here at UW. They really did a wonderful job, you know, making sure that there was constant information updated on that. I mean, within the Capitol itself, I think, you know, there were a lot of sources for information. I mean, I think that we made it a point to kind of constantly be telling people in the War Room what was going on and then carrying that out to people that we knew, you know, kind of in the rotunda and in other places. So, you know, at some point, it was probably too much information coming out, and some kind of like false news, you know, that was constantly kind of going around. But, yeah, I knew a lot of people from my department who ended up coming 00:46:00to the Capitol. And whenever I found anything out, I was making sure to text people and to go talk to people. So, yeah, I mean, I think that was...I'm sure it was true for everyone there, but I know from the TAA's perspective that was incredibly important to constantly be letting people know what we thought was going on, where people needed to be. I mean, a lot of our efforts were channeled towards getting phone bankers, and so we were constantly trying to recruit volunteers for various things and point them in the right direction to do, yeah, to do productive work. But, yeah, the social media component, I think lots of people have, you know, seen this is a very important place in which not just texting and iPhones and those kinds of things, although those were incredibly important, but, yeah, Facebook and all kinds of social media are really, really helpful. MF: Particularly since you were paying attention to social media in this protest, you may have gotten a sense, either through that or other media 00:47:00outlets, of how the protests were depicted to people who are not in Madison or, at least, not part of the protests. Did you find those depictions to be accurate? Did you have any concerns about them? LH: Yeah well I think it's a strange thing for people who were in the capital a lot in that we were really paying attention. I know I was not paying attention a whole lot to what was being circulated in national media. I kept up a little bit with what the New York Times was saying and was, as usual, really disappointed with their coverage. I think partially because they seem to be far more interested in some of the petty details of the protests kind of like how much the lawn was being torn up, the kind of possible damages that could be done in the Capitol, rather than focusing on the real singularity of the situation. I mean, I don't ever 00:48:00remember reading anything from the New York Times that was kind of just blatantly astounded or promoting an expression of direct democracy. I don't know that they ever addressed that at all. I mean, I think per their usual fashion, they were very interested in contextualizing it in a way that can make these kinds of events seen not just expected but also not important in some in some ways otherwise. Yeah, I mean, the I guess the main thing that I remember from media coverage was always the discrepancy over the numbers of people who were or were not coming out for the protests and that oftentimes outlets like The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel lowballed what other news organizations, from what I 00:49:00remember, what other news organizations were saying. So I think particularly for the largest one that ended up being somewhere in the area of like one hundred thousand to one hundred twenty five thousand people. I think the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and I think the New York Times also highly or grossly underreported the numbers of the people that were out there. Yeah, otherwise, I mean, we obviously all watched the Jon Stewart Daily Show episode where Wisconsin was featured, which is a really wonderful moment in the Capitol, I feel like. But yeah I mean I mainly kept up with what was going on Facebook, what people were saying on Facebook. Which is always actually more exciting and interesting than reading an actual news source. I'm sure I did read more in the Capitol, but it's, like, it's totally escaping me now. I think the one that always stands out for me is the total lack of investment, I felt like, on the 00:50:00part of an organization like The New York Times, supposed to be liberal, and that seem to really want to take such an-- I mean, what one would call an, objectivist stance that actually wasn't objective at all, but that really downplayed, I think, that. you know. that the radical historical moment that was going on.

MF: So you have certainly have commented on your experiences at the protests last spring. Could you say a little bit more about what you see as your future plans, perhaps academically?

LH: Sure, yeah, I think that's a good question. I say this to people in my department all the time, but I have never been good about thinking about jobs, and I always find it to be maybe my 00:51:00overly...my overcommitment or something to the humanities in that I kind of do you have anti-institutional approach to thinking about why I study what I study, which is strange given that I work in kind of a critical approach that oftentimes is thought about as kind of the least public, or at least within the discourses of post-structuralism, and these kinds of things, oftentimes very much of thought as elitist and very much so specific to an academic context. So, I mean, I certainly think when...my plans coming in to graduate school would be to try and get a tenure track position somewhere. And that's certainly not off the table for me right now at all. I love being in grad school, and I love being in...and I would love a position in a particular kind of university, but I don't 00:52:00think that I... I think I said this before, but I'm not totally sold on just taking any academic job just for the sake of being an academic job. I mean I'm increasingly interested also in kind of transformations in higher education on all kinds of financial and policy levels and activism around that. So I think that right now I'm in a position where I very much so care about the things that I work on in terms of my academic work but that...I don't think that I will be completely satiated or satisfied with a position or a job that doesn't allow me to continue doing things like the things that I do with the TAA and doesn't allow me to address ongoing problems in higher education, like student debt, 00:53:00tuition increases, administrative reforms, and administrative bloat and higher education. And I'm highly aware of the kind of transformation that can happen to graduate students once they move into the position of faculty and faculty when they move into the position of administration and the ways in which that... that demands a particular kind of ideological worldview for people, and I'm very sensitive to that. And so I don't think that I would want to be in an academic position that would demand that I not be able to attend to these other things that I'm really concerned about that I think have everything to do with my literary research as well in a lot of ways. So, but I also am in a strange situation because I am not...I don't want to have a family at any point. I'm not concerned...I've never wanted children, and I'm not concerned with getting 00:54:00married. So the pressures on getting a job are a lot lower. So I think, I mean, my plans for now are to finish my PAship, and then I have a fellowship from the Department of Education, on which I'll plan to write my dissertation for the next two years after that and work on that and then just see kind of what happens. I am increasingly interested in, yeah, people that I meet on a regular basis who are somehow able to put together really flourishing lives on the basis of doing kind of adjunct work, and doing really strong activism at the same time, and then writing on their own time in a way that subsidizes their lifestyle. So I think that I'm increasingly interested in these different forms and lifestyles that allow one to maintain an intellectual and academic lifestyle 00:55:00but that don't conscript you and your intellectual work into a really problematic system of higher education. So I think that will continue to develop and that that might be something that I would consider moving forward. I would not tell my advisor that, of course, for sure, since it is very important that we all get academic jobs after this. But yeah I'm certainly interested in trying to think about, I mean, I believe in the...I believe that our work life shapes the rest of our life, and so I'm acutely aware of the pressures that being in academic...a particular kind of academic context...can very much so put pressure on the other political and social issues that I think most of...actually most of us are actually going to grad school with.

MF: Great. And you certainly have also already touched on perhaps your future political plans with the comments 00:56:00you made about the academy, but do you have any additional plans for your future, perhaps politically?

LH: No, yeah, I don't think so. I'm certainly not...have no interest in going into electoral politics by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, no, I think that I'm very happy with working in a grad union, and I don't think that I would be happy working in a larger union context for various reasons. Yeah, I think that in terms of politics, I'm just interested in continuing to work on higher education issues for sure. And so anywhere that I can do that and then hopefully also do the kind of work that I want to do within literature, so I do feel like literature and politics are incredibly important together and incredibly powerful together. But, yeah, no grand vision for political affiliation or alignment later on.

MF: Looking back on the totality of the comments you have shared today or perhaps on your experience of the protests at the Capitol last year. Do you have any final thoughts or comments or perhaps even just points you would like to re-stress regarding your experiences?

LH: Yeah, I guess the only thing I would stress is that I do feel like having been involved in the protests was nothing short of a transformative experience, and I don't think that's particular to...only particular to what happened at the Capitol even though that was such a singular moment. I think that the more I continue to work on issues that don't necessarily have anything to do with the occupation itself the more that I learn that there is this political dimension to life that is incredibly fulfilling in all kinds of social and subjective ways 00:58:00and very much productive of a very affirming experience of life and that is both a part and not a part of union membership. And that it has everything; it's bound up with finding a collective of people who are really interested, sometimes in ways that...sometimes in ways that can detract from your own individual interests and pursuits in life. And I don't mean that in a negative way but that re-shape your interests. Yeah, that this kind of experience that's grown out of the Capitol but that's been now more broadly a part of just participating in what I take to be participatory democracy or direct action. That this is a lifestyle that has been incredibly pleasurable and affirming and, 00:59:00in a lot of ways, very joyful for me, and I think that that is the way that I would want people to think I guess about graduate unions, about being a part of a graduate union, that it's not about individual interest or self interest or even just negotiating over a list of issues or items. But that it's a part of coming to terms with a much richer understanding of what public education is about, what research in education is about, and, you know, what our actual status and power in the university is because I think grad school is incredibly disempowering a lot of ways and very psychologically difficult and isolating for 01:00:00people. And I think that being a part of the TAA has allowed me to understand graduate school in a very, very different way but also to understand my broader life in a very different way.

MF: Great, great. Do you have any other comments you would like to add? You certainly offered a great summary there.

LH: Ok. Yeah, I think, that's probably it, yeah.

MF: Thank you so much for taking time today to talk to me about your experiences.

LH: Yeah, thank you so...I'm so glad that this is going on, so thank you.

MF: Great.