tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-364869602024-03-07T02:58:20.911-05:00To Delight and to InstructIf the purpose of art is the same as the purpose of teaching, is teaching therefore an art?Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.comBlogger416125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-38568551686317622472013-01-11T17:18:00.001-05:002013-01-11T17:18:13.587-05:00In which something new happens...over <a href="http://delightandinstruct.wordpress.com/">here</a>...Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-56113922439505169752012-03-27T22:10:00.004-04:002012-03-27T22:39:01.580-04:00CurtainI've threatened to do this before, but I think now is the time to bring down the curtain on this little blog. As many of my readers already know (as if I still had many readers these days, after being such a neglectful writer), I am taking on a new post here at BRU as an Assistant Dean in the Honors College. It's a huge step, one about which I'm a bit ambivalent, and a bit terrified, and (really) very excited. In some ways, it's an experience I'd love to blog about--but that seems just a bit too complex to negotiate at the moment.<br /><br />It seems a useful moment to reflect on a lot of things as I close up shop. For example, there's a thread rolling around the academic blogosphere about teaching to the kind of student you once were, And in many ways, it's a perfect meme to use to describe this particular transition. Because, you see, this was one of the lines of thought I returned to as I interviewed for this position. I wasn't just an honors student (lots of us were), but I was an honors student at a bunch of not-fancy places--a moderately big fish (though rarely the biggest) in a lot of moderately small ponds.<br /><br />I'm not a first-generation college student, but second, and my home community was fairly rural, but not deeply so. I was a smart lower-middle class kid in a town that people didn't leave, but mostly because they didn't really want to...Honors pre-college education gave me a lot of opportunities that my public school district couldn't afford me, and the residentiual honors program in undergrad surrounded me with people who had aspirations that I wasn't aware I could have.<br /><br />And so, taking up a post in an honors college at a university that is not particularly fancy (certainly not at the undergraduate level) feel like a way to teach a lot of kids who could still learn the kinds of (para-curricular) lessons I can teach. Kids who think they are smarter than they are, but are also smarter than they think, just in different ways.<br /><br />The part about which I am most ambivalent is leaving the English department, particularly at a moment when that department seems poised to potentially leap forward, or possibly go nowhere at all, and where "forward" might be a contested term itself. Perhaps someday I'll return to that department: it's hard to know what direction I'm going after a few years...<br /><br />This also seems a moment to reflect on blogging. When I first began blogging at <span style="font-style: italic;">Raining Cats and Dogma</span>, I was about to defend my dissertation, take on my first full-time position, and become a father of twins. Now I'm tenured, completing page proofs for the book that came from that dissertation, and moving into administration. Most of that has been chronicled in a weblog (though I see that the domain for the old blog has gone dead...sigh).<br /><br />These two spaces, and the communities they have afforded me, offered amazing reflective opportunities, ways to acclimate to professional academia, and <a href="http://penniesinajarblog.blogspot.com/">some </a><a href="http://reassignedtime.wordpress.com/">damn </a><a href="http://feruleandfescue.blogspot.com/">good </a><a href="http://academiccog.blogspot.com/">friends</a>. These nine years of online writing have been invaluable, and have spanned the rise and (partial) fall of academic blogging as, well, a thing.<br /><br />It is weird to say goodbye, as it were, but any of you who doesn't already know me IRL, feel free to get in touch, either at this blog's email address or my personal one: both gmail addresses: [delightandinstruct] or [claycomb].<br /><br />And the rest, as they say, is silence.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-4737933150578905882012-02-01T13:45:00.002-05:002012-02-01T13:47:31.292-05:00On *Albert Nobbs*I haven't seen the film yet, but if you have (or want to), check out <a href="http://feministspectator.blogspot.com/2012/01/albert-nobbs.html">this post</a>, in which Jill Dolan reveals how both she and Glenn Close are at the absolute top of their games.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-11979223701838090552012-01-23T10:25:00.002-05:002012-01-23T10:53:22.762-05:00Queering "Queer"I am what folks once upon a time would have called "a bit of a queer fellow." I'm not talking about my sexuality here: it's neither at issue in this post, nor is it particularly useful as a site of public discourse, since my identity and practice are both quite hetero-normative (I've been in a committed state-and-church-sanctioned marriage for a dozen years).<br /><br />What I'm talking about is the velvet blazer, the plaid bow-tie, the fact that I'm vaguely ostentatious, flamboyant, chatty, gossipy, into theatre, concerned with home decor, the list goes on. I am, as you might say, somewhat (though not extraordinarily) "queer," and it's a persona that in this town I play up a bit.<br /><br />In a sense, I'm just a test case. I've been setting off people's gaydar for years, and while that used to bother me, I realized that was mostly just homophobia (although in some cases, it was about<a href="http://delightandinstruct.blogspot.com/2009/09/on-responding-to-presumption.html"> the power of presumption</a>). In fact, part of what I think I'm doing, here on this campus that takes its hyper-masculine mascot very very seriously, is opening up a non-normative model of masculinity in such a way that uncouples compulsory gender performance from sexuality.<br /><br />This post is both a vague rumination and a query (I might say Queer-y), about the history of the word "queer" and about the politics of deploying it in a way that I might claim that identity independent of sexual practice. <br /><br />I came up in a cultural moment in which ACT UP, Queer Nation (and Queer Campus), and importantly, queer theory were all changing the discourse, and reclaiming "queer" so I have little sense of how that term actually functioned before that moment. Of course it was used as a homophobic slur, but how, and when, did it make meaning as "eccentric" before Stonewall, or even between 1969 and 1990?<br /><br />And is there a use in self-consciously re-claiming "eccentric" under the newer umbrella of "queer" that has developed in my adult lifetime? <br /><br />I think there are some interesting precedents here, particularly in the intersection between queer activism and disability activism. This is articulated in academic work like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crip-Theory-Cultural-Queerness-Disability/dp/0814757138/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1327333462&sr=8-2">Robert</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Disability-Robert-McRuer/dp/0822351544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327333462&sr=8-1">McRuer</a>'s, but also in popular culture like Lady Gaga's use of the term "freak."<br /><br />And here is where some of this all comes together. In the last year, at three different times, someone has shouted some homophobic epithet at me as I walked down the street. And I've gotten these off and on my entire life. So while epithets and slurs are not the worst kind of bullying, I've been bullied a bit about being queer, but queer in the sense of eccentric--since for those young men (all of them that I can think of), they were the same thing. <br /><br />As always, dear reader, your thoughts welcome, for mine at this stage are amorphous and poorly thought out.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-56348798380065541352012-01-15T14:45:00.002-05:002012-01-15T14:57:55.927-05:00LessSome readers will remember that 3 years ago, <a href="http://delightandinstruct.blogspot.com/2007/05/weight.html">I went on a serious campaign to lose weight</a>, and in the <a href="http://delightandinstruct.blogspot.com/2007/08/now-10-off.html">space of a summer</a>, I lost 25 pounds (193 lbs down to 168). A few minor injuries and another child later, and I settled into a comfortable, though not ideal weight of around 180. Well, a long semester and just plain inertia set in in the fall, and I've found myself back up to 190. More importantly, my favorite clothes don't fit well, my strength level is down, and I feel sluggish--though admittedly, I do think of myself as stunningly handsome at any weight ;-)<br /><br />Eh. But seriously. With the opportunity of a sabbatical to reestablish some better exercise and eating habits, I'm looking to get back down into the 170s sometime this year (a pretty modest goal, all things considered). And having seen <a href="http://roxies-world.blogspot.com/2012/01/woman-of-less-substance.html">the excellent success of M. Smith Lindemann</a> I am inspired to take up the charge. The regime? Eat less, and more mindfully, and exercise in ways I enjoy: playing squash, coaching Rambunctious's soccer team, light weight-lifting, modest-but-regular cardio at the gym and at home. <br /><br />We'll see how it goes, but I'd say it's at least as important as the writing goals.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-63032146974278609112012-01-11T21:46:00.003-05:002012-01-11T22:05:15.182-05:00Every Day is Yours to WinThose who know me, and longer readers of this blog know that I'm quasi-obsessed with REM, and so the news of their closing-up-shop in 2011 was a blow, especially since they had released their best album in 15 years just months before. <br /><br />But on that album is a typically Stipe-ean song that shares its title, one that seems at once idealistic and optimistic, while at the same time, knowingly ironic. And it is with that same combination of motivational optimism and vaguely weary ironic detachment that I trot that phrase out for my sabbatical. <br /><br />Because I know that if I don't treat every day as one to be, well, won--against inertia, primarily--that the whole thing will be frittered away before I know it. And so without further adieu, here is the list of projects on the front, middle, and back burners. I won't get to them all, but I want to touch, if not complete most of them.<br /><ul><li>proofreading corrections to the book manuscript.</li><li>indexing (or arranging for indexing) of the book manuscript</li><li>The overdue book review.</li><li>The narratology essay, already 18 pages drafted</li><li>the pain essay (see the recent MLA program), currently in either 6 pages of prose or 22 pages of prosy notes</li><li>The essay on theatrical representations of terrorists and human rights, an extension of a recent essay, and maybe only a conference paper.</li><li>The essay on published autobiographies of autobiographical performance artists</li><li>The next book, which will have 8 chapters, with the following thematic titles: history, community, body, authenticity, space, gender, alterity, disability. Of those, only two chapters will be built from the ground up, and there are probably about 150 pages of extant prose to work with.<br /></li></ul><p>So keep your fingers crossed. To win tomorrow, I've got to touch the book review. <br /></p>Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-3204224246343480802012-01-02T16:36:00.005-05:002012-01-02T21:53:22.422-05:00Books I Read and Liked: 2011<span style="font-style: italic;">The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart</span> by Glenn Taylor: Glenn is newly my colleague, but I am not merely being a good department-mate when I say I thought this was a pretty terrific book. What I think is best about it is that the novel thinks critically about the stereotypes of Appalachia that it traffics in, without losing the degree to which the region is deeply steeped in story. A book both suspicious of and inflected by postmodern storytelling, this book put Taylor on the scene from out of nowhere for a reason.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb</span> by Amitava Kumar: A look at the war on terror from the vantage point of the bumblers and ne'er-do-wells caught on the wrong side of a global exercise of power. What Kumar does that I haven't seen elsewhere is that he looks at the injustice for those who were roped into and sometimes even entrapped in terrorist activities. So that human rights doesn't necessarily presume innocence, which is, I think, an important point to bring in. His approach is also transnational in ways that model an ethic rather than just preaching one. The book has its problems, but it's definitely worth a read.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A Visit From the Goon Squad</span> by Jennifer Egan: Egan's book, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was most interesting to me as one of a growing category of contemporary fiction that is taking the formal experiments of an earlier generation of writers, and and turning them to somewhat less solipsistic, more humanist concerns. Here Egan uses formal play with narrative time to actually comment on the ravages, possibilities, and unexpected left turns that the inexorable movement of time plays on all of us. More formally interesting interesting than I think it's given credit for, but for me, also somewhat less affecting.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Picture of Dorian Gray</span> by Oscar Wilde: Can you believe I had never read it?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Anthologist</span> by Nicholson Baker: So I read this while I was teaching the poetry unit in the Foundations course, and I kind of wished my students had been reading it with me, but I also know that assigning it would have been deadly. The plot is reed-thin, but it's a love letter to poetry that I was feeling pretty deeply at the time. Irrationally, perhaps my favorite read of the year.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit</span> By Jeanette Winterson: Oddly, it took me <span style="font-style: italic;">forever</span> to polish this one off...Partially, the crazy evangelical thing in this book hits close to home, though not in a way that is uncomfortable, but rather leaves me somewhat blase (more than one traveling evangelist prophesied a preacherly future for me...there's still time, I guess). Still, as a bit of a Winterson completist, it was important to finish and I think it picked up as it went on. <br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Tiger's Wife</span> by Tea Obreht: While I very much enjoyed reading this, I did not find it the brilliant fabulism that the reviews sold it to be. But, she's a storyteller, and moments and threads in this were really lovely and wonderful. If by the time Obreht is done writing, this is her best book, then meh. But the potential here is really great. I do want to read her next one.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Weight</span> by Jeanette Winterson: I read this very early in the year...it's a bit slight by Winterson standards, but a nifty little book, nonetheless. The image of Atlas watching Laika, the Russian astro-mutt sticks with me...<br /><br />So those are the ones I remember. Up for 2012: Atwood's Penelopiad, Arthur Phillips's <span style="font-style: italic;">The</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Tragedy of Arthur</span>, Julian Barnes's <span style="font-style: italic;">England, England</span>, Safran Foer's, <span style="font-style: italic;">Tree of Codes</span>, and maybe David Foster Wallace's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Pale King </span>(we'll see). Of course, recommendations welcome.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-35600134550810163362012-01-02T11:18:00.003-05:002012-01-02T11:35:04.002-05:00So *that* was a year...I tend to treat the new year as an opportunity to look forward rather than back, but given that 2011 was largely a very good year by most measures, a quick glance is in order I think. The highlights:<br /><br /><ul><li>tenure</li><li>book contract</li><li>sabbatical approved</li></ul>So those were the big professional milestones, all in some way slated for this year (contractually, or at least mentally), and so while in many ways this was a big year, it was also kind of pro forma. I know, easy for me to say. But because it was kind of pro forma, it also left me thinking and worrying about a number of other things.<br /><br />Willow's job/career was one of them. Because of some unfortunate local culture issues, although she was perfectly well qualified (and in some ways over-qualified), she could not secure a permanent teaching position either at BRU or the local school system. This was, indeed, an issue, and my professional successes in the first half of the year were very much colored by her frustrations. And then, in August, sort of out of left field, this unexpectedly great opportunity arose as the Provost's Assistant, and she has gone to being deeply disenchanted with this place and this institution to being unexpectedly optimistic about her and our prospects. <br /><br />This about-face has meant that my own thinking about my career path has been widely divergent, going from feeling somewhat apologetic about not only the modicum of success, but also a certain level of career commitment, to feeling oddly, not ambitious <span style="font-style: italic;">enough</span>. All of this will sort itself out soon enough, I think, as we both acclimate to our changing professional positions and environments, but it's been a change.<br /><br />The teaching year was honestly a familiar one, though at some point I may talk about the two tasks that really consumed my attention this year: developing the foundations course in the major, and become one of the department's undergraduate advisors. Both of these things sort of pulled me away from my research a smidge, but more importantly, pulled me away from my specialization, in good ways I think: forcing me to think about my specific areas of expertise in broader contexts, and to remind me of the things I haven't developed expertise on, but still nonetheless feel quite passionate about--a broad humanistic approach that is not currently emphasized in the current educational climate.<br /><br />Meanwhile, our children are growing, forming personalities, achieving things, really just becoming people on their own. Willow's new job means I've been a more active parent, which has been a positive change in many ways, attuning me honestly to rhythms of childhood life that are grounding.<br /><br />In sum, 2011 has been a positive year, and I'm certainly more comfortable and secure than I was at the end of 2010. How I use that security and comfort in 2012 is another matter, and perhaps this space will document that more thoroughly.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-13567847338414143792012-01-01T12:11:00.000-05:002012-01-01T12:11:00.145-05:00So ResolvedThere's a been, for me at least, a flurry of posts these past few days, and for this new year, my first resolution is to either post or close up shop. For reasons that will either become quite clear or remain a complete mystery (depending on the course I take) there's a lot cooking, and this space will either fit perfectly, or be singularly unsuited. We'll see.<br /><br />The other resolutions are less about the new year, and more about the new sabbatical, a one-semester research break I've got for the spring semester. We'll see how I do with that one, especially since I've agreed (foolishly, perhaps, but still) to retain some major service commitments through the spring ( a large search committee, the College curriculum committee, and PhD job placement director).<br /><br />Still, I'm resolving to set weekly goals, at least through April, and perhaps through August, that look like this:<br /><br />Each week, I will:<br /><ul><li>Accomplish one major writing goal (appropriate to the writing project at hand)</li><li>Accomplish one project around the house</li><li>Exercise three times</li><li>Post at least once to the blog</li></ul><p>Not too overwhelming, I don't think, but given what I already have written and in process, I hope to end my sabbatical with four articles and some progress toward the next book project. Depending on what happens for the summer and beyond, I hope to finish that book by the end of summer 2013 (fingers crossed).<br /></p><p>About this space: Now that I am more secure in my academic position, this blog might shift in tone a bit; for what audience, I'm not sure I know. But among the new things this year, I am likely to take on something of a leadership role in the church of which I am a member, and so it's possible that I may take a break to ruminate on matters metaphysical, about which I'm sure I have very little original to say. But we'll see. Onward to 2012!<br /></p>Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-53877762750299375862011-12-31T21:00:00.000-05:002011-12-31T21:00:06.905-05:00Bedtime SongsThese evenings just at the end of the year are long, and dark.<br /><br />When Junebug is ready for bed, I take him up into his room, turn out the lights, and in the very dark, I sit with him in my lap on the rocking chair, and sing him songs.<br /><br />We've been singing carols as bedtime songs for weeks now, and we begin with a rousing "Rudolph," and he bellows "Like Pinocchio!" at the proper time. But we slow down, moving from "Angels We Have Heard on High" to "Away in the Manger" and down to "Silent Night." <br /><br />These are perfect lullabies, because I do still feel them profoundly, and the long round notes relax us both.<br /><br />On "O Little Town of Bethlehem," Junebug nestles into the crook of my arm, and when we move to our regular lullabies, with lines like "rest your head / close to my heart / never to part," he lays his right ear on my chest, and with his left hand reaches up to stroke my beard.<br /><br />The unsentimental part of me recognizes that the vibrations of my chest cavity and my open mouth register those baritone lyrics most perceptibly at these places, when the darkness is least familiar, and most unsettling. <br /><br />But I also know that, vice versa, he is feeling my words and listening to my heart sing just for him.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-36443093918621321882011-12-30T13:47:00.003-05:002011-12-30T14:53:06.610-05:00RevengeIt's been months since I posted, but the last post from September is a good one, 'cause guess what? That student sure showed me. <br /><br />Several days ago, just before the holidays began in earnest, I got the statistical reports back from my two sections of the "foundations" course that I had been teaching. Two sections: same syllabus, same lesson plans, same assignments, similar grade distribution. The earlier section was somewhat less talkative, and had fewer pure standout students, and the later section seemed to be running preternaturally well, but by-and-large, these were the same class, held back to back.<br /><br />So when I handed out course evals in each class, I figured that they would look quite similar, and that (since both courses felt like they'd gone in familiar ways) both sets would look like most of the other sets of evaluations I had done in the past.<br /><br />So, last week, when I looked at the statistical reports, I was pleased, but not surprised, to see that the later section (the first set I read) gave me quite good scores--on a 1-5 scale, most of the average scores were 4.7 and above. Statistically, these evaluations were the best of any course I'd ever taught that didn't involve an actual trip to London. <br /><br />I didn't expect the next section's scores to be quite as high, but for a moment, I believed that this first batch confirmed what I had believed: that this particularly rigorous version of the course that I had designed had been successful. In addition to the three graded papers that each required conferences, I had students complete 20 written exercises that sometimes took particularly ambitious students 3 pages to complete fully. I had asked them to work quite hard, but for all but one student (and not the one you may be thinking) that work had yielded sometimes transformative dividends in their thinking and writing.<br /><br />Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened the pdf for the other section and discovered that these scores were flat out the worst of my entire teaching career. A couple of mean scores dipped below the 4.0 mark (which for me is pretty shockingly low, and were in some cases in the 10th and 15th percentile across all university courses)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Whaaaa?</span><br /><br />Now, part of this stems from what seems to be one student who (I would argue, in bad faith) simply gave me straight 1's. And my guess is that the student who produced that document was the same student mentioned in the below post. But even accounting for that student, these were still statistically low evaluations. How do I account for this? Some possibilities.<br /><br />1) A poisoned well: This student was so disenchanted with me and this course that hir bitching and moaning when I wasn't in the room colored the perceptions of everyone else in the room. This is something of a possibility, but this was a fairly quiet student, so it's hard to attribute the entire anomaly to this effect.<br /><br />2) My optimism about the course and how well it had gone is somewhere in between the two, and the rosy view of the "better" section is no more a precise measure than the scathing ones were. I certainly want to believe that the great scores were the true ones, and the poor ones were a statistical anomaly, but perhaps to a certain degree they are both statistical anomalies. <br /><br />3) The difference in student populations between the two courses had a bigger effect on student perception than I had imagined. This is possible, but this theory is contradicted by other courses in my experience. Of the 10+ sections of the survey course I've taught, my perception of student ability and enthusiasm is usually irrelevant to their perceptions of the course, and sometimes they actually seem inversely related. Now, I went for "rigor" more vociferously here, and if anything (outside of actual learning) seems likely to produce lower course evaluations, it is more writing and "stricter" grading policies. In this case, then, the section with the fewer high performing students seems to have fostered a classroom culture that less thoroughly bought into what I was aiming for in the course.<br /><br />So some lessons to learn here:<br />1) As I think we all know, course evaluations are an imprecise, if not downright inaccurate way of measuring how well a given instructor is doing in a given class. Certainly trends over several sections can be telling, but the caprice that seems to have determined the wild divergence in these two sets disrupts many sureties we may have about these assessment tools.<br /><br />2) Perception may matter more than actual learning in student evals. I think we all knew this too, but it underscores a dangerous trend, and one that many assessment initiatives are unable to account for. This is, given that my merit raise is keyed to my annual evaluation, and that evaluation may in fact suffer from the comparative dissatisfaction of, maximum, five students, I am monetarily incentivized to move away from the practices that I believe created the conditions for these poor evaluations. And in at least one case, I think that practice was simply this: intellectual honesty with a poor performing student who is ill-suited for this discipline. So, what? when I meet a student like this one in the future, I smile and nod and say, "Sure, the civil right movement was about rainbows and ponies. What original thinking!"? No, of course, not, but when that choice may in fact literally cost me hundreds, and even thousands of dollars over the course of my lifetime (Since merit raises are a percentage of base pay, so the effect compounds over time)? Whew, that's a hard one. I understand why some folks have decided to simply punt on rigorous courses.<br /><br />3) This is the one more personal to me: I care waaaay too much about this. This has bothered me for over a week now, and has unsettled my thinking in a number of ways. While, sure, it's weird, I shouldn't still be talking about it, or at least bringing it up in casual conversation. But the fact is, Like many of my students, I derive a not-small chunk of my self-worth from external validation--it used to be grades, and then conference paper acceptances, and now articles and book contracts and yes, on a predictably regular interval, course evaluations. Five students should not have this kind of sway over me, but dammit they do. And like the student with whom I believe I was intellectually honest (or so I strongly suspect), I have taken this personally. And I shouldn't.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-79448386188962204792011-09-19T19:52:00.001-04:002011-09-19T19:56:09.386-04:00Why not to major in English<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 10"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 10"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CAnn%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><o:p></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >So this semester, I’m teaching two sections of intro to the major, a course that is often a “service” course, but since we’ve just recently introduced a foundations component into our major, I’m one of the folks who are really piloting it as a key component of the curriculum.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >So functionally, nearly half of the class of 2014 in the English major may have ended up taking this course from me.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I’ve designed the course around three papers and a series of 20 written exercises.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Some of these exercises are analytical stepping stones for their papers, some are creative-writing responses to texts we’re reading, some are reflections on their favorite pieces of writing, etc.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The standard analytical prompts (e.g. “choose a concrete image in this poem and in a 5-8 sentence paragraph, make and support a claim about how that image contributes to a specific theme in the poem”) have posed few problems, but the less analytical ones have been a mixed bag.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Now, I stand by these different types of prompts.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Not only do I want to introduce them to the different tracks within the major, but I want to introduce some metadiscourse about the field, one being the idea that literature is itself a way to think through issues—analogically, polysemantically, allusively, etc—a claim advanced by Marjorie Garber in her recent book <i style="">The Use and Abuse of Literature</i> which we’re also reading in this class.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This last creative response (in your own creative text, re-work a metaphor found in one of the poems for this week, using the metaphor in a new context for different, though perhaps complementary, effect) seem to bring out the drama, though.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">One student’s response is a straight up journal entry about depression and the help she’s been getting.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">OK. But how do I grade that?</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Uggh (answer:</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I didn’t.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I responded with a long, supportive note, and a request that she try something a little less personal for the assignment itself.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Extension granted.)…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The one that really got me was a poem that reworked a Harlem Renaissance text as a poem about the power of positive thinking.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Deferring one’s</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">dreams, it seems is only the result of a poor attitude. Not, you know, centuries of virulent racism.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But then, at the end of the student's explanatory note (I ask them to contextualize their choices), I get a long rant on how this student just isn’t a fan of poetry.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">After all, why bother with burying your point in flowery language?</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">To quote:</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">“I believe all of the metaphors are a silly guessing game. Interpreting these poems because the authors were too complicated to express their feelings in a straight forward [sic] manner frustrates me to no end.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">!!!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And so my question:</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Why are you an English major?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">No really.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I believe that the skills we teach are important, and that the critical thinking skills we teach here are crucial, but when you believe that nothing less than artfulness is the obstacle to your sense of the language, why would you <i style="">choose</i> to be in a major that revolves, frequently, around artfulness of language?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">More to the point: one of the goals of the class is to provide a clearer entry point into our field, and thereby work as a bit of affirmation for our new majors.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">But what about this student?</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Would it not be in everyone’s best interest to say to this child, “I really don’t think this is right for you”?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >The student wasn’t in class today, so it’s quite possible that that last outburst was a parting shot before she withdrew from the course.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >While I usually don’t like to have students drop my classes, in this case, it may just be the best thing possible.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-2922435139629066282011-09-02T12:06:00.002-04:002011-09-02T12:18:13.039-04:00Oh, yeah, how about that?I neglected to mention: It's a bit of a new stage here at D&I. Since I'm now officially a<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Tenured Professor</span>, and I've mailed that revised book ms. off to the press, where it is now officially somewhere <span style="font-weight: bold;">In Production</span>, I have now achieved <span style="font-weight: bold;">My Goals</span> (all obnoxious boldface intended).
<br />
<br />I suspect there's a deep an vicious post-tenure malaise sitting out there somewhere (probably during my Spring semester sabbatical) and maybe some kind of other-shoe-dropping thing, but for now, glorious vistas of...something or other.
<br />
<br />The other big deal is that Willow is now, for the first time since we've been here at BRU, fully employed. In the intervening 6 years, she was writing (quite successfully, but not yet profitably), completing and MFA and teaching with that, and then for the last year or so, underemployed while she substitute-taught, adjuncted, wrote, and other things. The employment issue was big deal though, because her options were limited here, and the kinds of positions she was sometimes in contention for were here in the department, where some of you, dear Readers, are also employed. The not-being-able-to-talk-about-that has really driven me away from blogging, since it was the single biggest stressor in our lives, and much of What I Had To Say revolved around things like partner hiring was inappropriate to be blogged here and then.
<br />
<br />But the new statuses (tenured, employed) mean I'm in a new posting place. Whether I'll actually post or not remains to be seen.
<br />Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-78528907746260886312011-09-01T12:37:00.003-04:002011-09-01T12:59:27.381-04:00Which Pond I'm InSo, after 6 years here, one degree program, and an unnecessarily humiliating turn trying to get a job in the public school system here, Willow has secured employment. Insofar as she is not teaching literature or creative writing, or, for that matter, anything, at the moment, it is not an ideal job, but it is a good position that pays well.
<br />
<br />She is working as an executive assistant to a very highly-placed official on our large (30K students) campus, and so in her first week she has been very, very busy, and seems (if I may speak for her) both energized and exhausted by the work.
<br />
<br />She has also met, very quickly, the most important people on campus in a very short time. And while her job is, as she put it, "to hold their sandals," the sense of access that she has serves to underscore just how little access to big decisions any of us has at any time. So on the one hand, I'm tenured faculty at a Carnegie High (very high? I can't remember. Borderline, either way) Research Activity University, with a comfy teaching load and humane publishing requirements and a rising, if not firmly established, reputation in my field.
<br />
<br />And yet how <span style="font-style: italic;">small</span> I felt just from hearing her rattle off the names of the people to whom she was introduced on her first day. It was such a curious feeling, and the vertigo of privilege and influence that it has initiated (admittedly, not all consuming, but definitely perceptible) has me questioning a number of things: how much I imagine I can accomplish in a career, how significant (or not) my idealistic and utopian visions of academia might be in enacting change.
<br />
<br />There's an exchange in the film <span style="font-style: italic;">The American President</span> between the Chief of Staff (Martin Sheen) and the President (Michael Douglas) in which Sheen tells Douglas that without him, Douglas would "be the most popular history professor at the University of Wisconsin." Ouch.
<br />
<br />And as not-even-the-most-popular English Professor at an institution further downstream, having just secured most of my tangible career goals (tenure, book) I am wondering: where to from here? Do I aspire to work in the fancy building with the busy staff? I imagine I can get there, but would that be aspiring for the sake of aspiration? Would I be happier where I am? Would my sense of integrity (hardly unimpeachable, but trying) and idealism (ditto) be put to better use on some further path, or is it best placed here?
<br />
<br />From the new perspective provided by Willow's new job, the pond I'm in suddenly seems smaller than before, a small departmental inlet off of a minor university pond. But I'm not yet clear on whether I'm better off in another pond, or cove, or whatever. At the moment, I'm feeling just slightly....<span style="font-style: italic;">adrift</span>.
<br />Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-91931318305910990062011-08-16T14:00:00.003-04:002011-08-16T14:05:37.231-04:00And I think that's a wrap...The book revisions have been a it of an elusive thing. I think I had this sense that since they were quite manageable, I'd plow through them in May and June, and be done ahead of schedule. And then when that didn't happen. I figured they'd end up waiting until the end of the summer, when I'd have to plow through them and squeak in under deadline...
<br />
<br />But here it is, a few weeks before deadline--closer than I would've liked, to be sure--and I think I'm done. I did the substantive revisions in July mostly, and edited those last week, to little fanfare, and this week, I've been concentrating on converting the whole thing to Chicago Style (nothing like a full on manual style sheet cobnversion to force you to proofread your endnotes!). So that's all done, and, I think that's it. There's some manuscript prep to do (breaking it up into files, numbering pages, stuff like that), but besides that, I think this draft is complete.
<br />
<br />And of course, there's still copyediting and page proofs and indexing, so there's work left to do, but intellectually, at least, I think I can lay this project to rest. After all, it's only been, what? 11 years?
<br />Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-54223591840898322572011-07-20T19:31:00.002-04:002011-07-20T19:42:43.986-04:00Something that probably just won't workThings were different when I wrote up a really excellent abstract for what looks to be <a href="http://www.york.ac.uk/modernstudies/conferences/things_unspeakable/">a really excellent conference</a>. Conferences that are this close to the very center of my work--contemporary political theatre--are rare (as in, I've never been to one). And so I was excited to get my acceptance from them. <br /><br />But some things have changed. First, I found out I'm teaching on a MWF schedule, which means classes suffer more from conferences (especially distant ones). Then I found out that I had a paper accepted at another conference (<a href="http://www.astr.org/featured-news/205-astr-2011-cfp">ASTR</a>), one I adore going to and hope to attend as regularly as possible. Then fuel prices went up. And then I realized how difficult it was going to be to get to York, UK. <br /><br />Sigh. <br /><br />I would <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>like to get to this conference. But I'm not sure that it's worth the money, the jet lag, and the missed classes to do it.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-84296798086288825902011-07-18T10:57:00.002-04:002011-07-18T11:03:17.509-04:00Fun with RevisionLet it be known, I am not a great reviser of my own work. More accurately, while I am happy to really muck around with the text while I am drafting, once I think it's done, I have a great deal of trouble opening it back up and making significant changes. I tend to simply add things that are suggested, without changing much of the existing text--this sometimes results in ideas coming a bit out of order, things expressed redundantly, or the persistence of ideas that seem naive or obsolete even in light of other ideas expressed in the text. <br /><br />It also usually means the word count goes up.<br /><br />Since the contract specified that the word count could be no higher than 100k words, and the draft was already at 101K, this revision process has been a significant challenge. I plucked a couple thousand off with some of my revisions to the intro, but the final chapter's worth of revisions found me back in my old habits of adding without cutting. I'm going to try to go back over it one more time with an eye specifically to trimming, but I wanted to check my word count just to see where I was for the complete ms. with this last bit of chapter revisions. <br /><br />The total count: 99,918 words.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-39364354848241478552011-07-11T19:37:00.002-04:002011-07-11T19:57:42.175-04:00You know what I like?Colleagues. I don't know if many of you have noticed this, but without our colleagues, many of us would be really really screwed. Think about it. What would it be like going to dinner parties, having hallway chats, even waging contentious debates over email, if you knew that no one, not ever, shared the experience of academia with you. It's not that non-academics are not capable of scintillating conversations, or sustained, adult debate, or even (certainly) that all academics ARE capable of such. It's just that it's so nice to have a body of like-minded folks in close reach.<br /><br />I know that if I were not a member of an academic department, I would either be regarded as very weird, or I would feel very alone, constantly rambling on about cultural constructions of this and performing that while my hosts rolled their eyes and returned to their discussions of taxes or city management or whatever else normal people talk about over dinner.<br /><br />But really, before I follow that line of argument too far in any given direction, what I like most about colleagues is having really smart people with whom to talk about books, with whom to think about ideas, or whose writing about books and ideas we get to read.<br /><br />Two instances: when I arrived at my office this morning, I found in my box an offprint of one <a href="http://romantoes.blogspot.com/">colleague</a>'s really great <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/college_literature/summary/v038/38.3.bredehoft.html">article on authorship in comics</a>, which I avidly read instead of the article relating to my own research. I enjoyed it thoroughly. <br /><br />The second...a colleague who is, like me, teaching the gateway-to-the-major course had recently borrowed a play by Sarah Kane that I had not-entirely-seriously recommended to her for the class. She stopped by to see if I had received the returned copy, and then just lingered in the doorway while we talked about the books we were teaching, and why those books were really just pretty much awesome. <br /><br />That's all. Just a casual 20 minute conversation on how great Angela Carter is, and why Stoppard's <span style="font-style: italic;">Arcadia</span> is so good for teaching...with a colleague. The kind I'd be thrilled to find anywhere in the corporate world, but that I can count on existing in high numbers in a university English department. That's what I like.<span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class=" down" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"><img src="img/blank.gif" alt="Link" class="gl_link" border="0" /></span></span>Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-35770959513359228642011-07-08T13:32:00.003-04:002011-07-08T15:06:17.038-04:00Floating an idea: The Humanities AcademySo Tenured Radical has moved over to a new blog at the Chronicle, where she has a fascinating <a href="http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/tenuredradical/2011/07/what-if-thinking-about-education-as-a-business-was-a-good-thing/">post</a> up. The central question is how might we in academia employ a development model based on a liberal capitalism that privileges long term infrastructure growth and smart innovation (rather than a privatization model that rewards short-term growth often at the expense of long-term institutional health).<br /><br />She makes two assertions in particular that I want to pick up on here:<br /><br /><strong>1) "Recognize that some students will feel well-served by [the humanities] and others won’t. Ask the students who feel served by the humanities why, and invest in those students. Release the others from humanities requirements."<br /><br />2) "Look around your institution, find something that doesn’t work as it should, and fix it. This requires dedicated faculty-administration partnership."</strong><br /><br />So BRU is a fairly large state flagship institution that is currently going crazy over STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) in a geographical region where the cultural values are generally pretty suspicious about liberal study anyway. The message that I as a humanities scholar lately has been that while my place at the university is basically important and sound, the amount of resources coming our way will be shrinking, and that we must continue to justify any new initiatives, faculty hires (including line replacements), and even some maintenance procedures in relation to the privatizing logic of money making; We have more than once been asked, then, to frame ourselves and our needs as subservient (not just below, but in service to) the more lucrative STEM fields that the university loves right now. As we lose literature faculty lines, for example, we gain technical writing lines.<br /><br />At the same time, the students who are coming to my mid-level English classes are sharply divided: English majors looking to fill in electives sit on one side, while majors from engineering or journalism sit on the other. Classes are often initially at least split into affinity groups, and meeting the needs of each of these groups is a juggling act, and often only really successful in isolated moments.<br /><br />There are a lot of other factors that contribute to the particular ways that humanities are being constrained from thriving most majors can only count 42 hours from a single discipline toward graduation, which means that we end up losing our most dedicated majors at the end of their junior year because they've maxed out their English credits and are off to fill out a second major. <br />So what I'm looking for is a way to shore up the humanities, not just for their own sake, but for the good of the undergraduate students in our program (who are often literally not permitted to get the kind of humanistic education they come to desire), and for the institution.<br /><br />We are also an institution that is sufficiently isolated such that we cannot follow TR's suggestion to share faculty among institutions, which also means we're the only (reasonably competitive) game in town for at least an hour in any direction. There are, in fact, very few SLACs in our state, and frankly, none of any particular prestige.<br /><br />So forgive me while I float an idea here, a pretty half-baked one, but still...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Humanities Academy</span><br />The idea of a humanities academy somewhat follows the model of the Living/Learning communities that popped up in the 90s, the idea of the small college within the large university. But whereas those had students beginning their university careers within small academies, and then moving out into the larger university for their upper division work, this would have students doing some or even much of their general education work early on, and then entering a smaller, more concentrated SLAC-style program within the larger university. In short, I'm imaging starting a new SLAC that draws on the resources of its host flagship state u. <br /><br />Let's say we admit students during their third semester, having completed (or enrolled in) at least 33 of the required 41 credits of general education (That leaves 2 or 3 of their gen-eds to fulfill over the course of the remaining 5 semesters). With the remaining 75-90 credits (depending on how expediently they move through the program, and how well they planned their pre-academy courses), they take 4 semesters of an additional language (already required by BRU's College of Arts and Sciences) and take a double major, one of which is a traditional major and the other of which is a multi-disciplinary humanities major.<br /><br />Many students already follow this path, actually, but there would be add-ons here:<br />1) Every semester, students enroll in a 1-or 2-credit humanities discussion section where faculty from each of the participating disciplines run open-ended discussions on trans-disciplinary topics that are guided as much by what students are taking in their other classes.<br /><br />2) Students would get guided advising that guides them specifically through their home-department's most rigorous options and through a thoughtfully planned selection of other participating disciplines.<br /><br />3) Home departments would offer one or two sections per semester that were limited to Humanities Academy students, which would help create the kind of small-college community that is currently sorely lacking in this large university.<br /><br />4) Although students are currently required here to take a capstone in their home department, the Humanities academy would offer interdisciplinary sections of the capstone course that would have students from different home-disciplines working together on somewhat more rigorous final projects than they might otherwise.<br /><br />5) The initiative of the Humanities Academy might also allow our current (very small) multi-disciplinary studies program to hire one or two dedicated faculty to teach in areas that we currently don't have departments to fully support. I'm thinking particularly of Classics here (Latin is taught at BRU by a retired chemistry prof.), but other fields that might specifically supplement a humanities education that couldn't otherwise thrive in a STEM-crazy flagship might could also be useful.<br /><br />If we were able to make such a program fly, we might be able to concentrate together our most talented humanities students, allowing them to reinforce each others' interests and habits of mind instead of having them always suffer silently in the corners of rooms stocked largely by gen-ed students who are frequently working hard but are just not at the same level. It would also provide a focal point for the university to highlight student accomplishments in the humanities, instead of finding them dispersed across academic departments where they are too isolated from one another to achieve much in the way of critical mass.<br /><br />Such Academy-dedicated classes would also likely be invigorating places to teach as well, and could provide a bit of a cyclical boost for faculty (tenure-track and "teaching-track" alike) who spend many classroom hours in lower-level courses. <br /><br />What would it require? A lot of work, first off. Buy-in from participating disciplines, and especially from individual faculty from each discipline, whose participation in the academy would help anchor a sense of real scholarly community. More time resources than fiscal ones, though in terms of faculty hours, those are interchangeable in some ways. <br /><br />So that's the rough sketch for a big idea. Is it anything more than a nice idea? Problems of potentials I haven't seen yet?Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-71705056400710961892011-06-01T12:38:00.002-04:002011-06-01T12:55:14.179-04:00On Being EditedThere is typically very little discussion on what constitutes good editing of academic prose. I've been through the editing process in a number of different formats, both through major and minor print journals, electronic journals, and books chapters. I've also been the editor once, and found that there were a good number more choices to be made as an editor of academics than I had suspected.<br /><br />Typically, I have had few, if any, problems with edits that were suggested, since typically, they were edits made to conform to house style, or simple proof-reading. Although when I was an editor, I did have to be a bit more active and hands-on with my edits. In one case, the author specifically gave me license to edit his very theory-heavy prose for readability, and while I think I did a decent job at readability, I was also very clear that I wanted him to make sure that I hadn't changed the nuance of anything that he had written. In the other case, the author had gone overboard on the block quotes, and instead of making those edits myself, we went through two or three rounds of revisions where I asked him to make specific kinds of revisions. That was a bit of an arduous process, but I think he felt ownership over the essay at different points when some major edits were needed. In all the other essays I edited, it was my policy to not comment on matters of style if comprehensibility was not on the line. I did not edit out things that I prefer to avoid personally (passive voice, even strategic; overly clunky signposting, etc.), but sought instead to preserve the author's voice with the (admittedly flexible) bounds of standard grammatical structure, a subject on which I am no expert.<br /><br />I have just gotten back edits on a book chapter however, where the editor (or more accurately, I think, the editor's assistant) has taken a very active hand in re-working the prose. Some of the edits are fine, I suppose, but others change the nuance of phrases, cut whole sentences, or simply re-phrase sentences on the basis of stylistic preferences rather than actual comprehensibility. In a few places, there are comments that say, "This sentence is unclear" on sentences that make perfect sense to me. <br /><br />In isolation, few of these comments or edits would bother me, but they are so thorough, and so unnecessarily thorough, that it feels like <span style="font-style: italic;">the language was often edited for the sake of being edited</span>. <br /><br />But my experience is generally limited, and so I pose this query: when either editing or being edited, how much of an editors' fingerprints do you think should be on any given draft? Should an editor of academic prose in a collection of essays be editing for style? How much so? And how do you respond when you think an editor has overstepped what you believe to be a comfortable ownership of the prose?Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-67968051618011922562011-05-23T20:34:00.002-04:002011-05-23T20:49:07.717-04:00Welcomes: Some thoughts on Academic CommunitiesIt seems, for the time being at least, that the department bleeding is done. We've lost most of the people whom we were likely to lose, and those who remain (and let's be serious; it's a big department and a lot of us remain) are in the frankly enviable position of being able to look at all of the newly blank spaces on our departmental rolls, and think about possibilities, and potential. <br /><br />The question I'm asking myself is, "At this moment and at this institution, what kind of department do I want to be a part of?" <br /><br />Certainly I have many ambitions for this department, as a space for learning, primarily, but also as a space for living. And to me, both of those things are best convivially. Conviviality is a value we don't often speak of, but it's really high up there on my list. I love to eat and drink with friends, to have long talks about stuff over coffee, or sitting on a bench. A friend and colleague of mine and I took our kids on an outing yesterday, and the cumulative hours in the car talking over our relationship to cities, the difficulties of junior faculty at our institution, and how roles for women in academia were and weren't changing... these topics were as satisfying as the rest of the outing.<br /><br />What does this have to do with the university? A lot, I think. At least to me. My understanding of the university is that it is a site for exchange, a place where ideas mingle because the idea-havers are mingling. Mingling itself is an important function, I think, and so a convivial atmosphere, in which we understand that working together is a kind of living together, for me fosters the best place for good teaching and great scholarship.<br /><br />So this week, an incoming faculty member is arriving in town to look for houses, do some paperwork, etc. And I'm happy that we're hosting him and his spouse for a meal. I hope it's the first of many. Because the way to establish a convivial space, one in which we learn and think together begins with a simple but generous welcome. Any readers, then, on their way to new homes, new departments, let me wish you a department and an institution that welcomes you generously and convivially. I hope it becomes a good place to work, and through working, to live. As I hope this place will continue to be, even more so, for us here.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-82427703983460734592011-05-21T22:22:00.002-04:002011-05-21T22:35:01.187-04:00A thought about blogging and literary studiesIn her new book, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Uses and Abuses of Literature</span> (Pantheon, 2011), which I'm reading to teach in my foundations course in the fall, Marjorie Garber writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>"The best way for literary scholars to reinstate the study of literature, language, and culture as a key player among the academic humanities is to do what we do best, to engage in big questions of intellectual importance and to address them by using the tools of our trade, which include not only material culture but also theory, interpretation, linguistic analysis, and a close and passionate attention to the rich allusiveness, deep ambivalence, and powerful slipperiness that is language in action."</blockquote><br />In some ways, this isn't either particularly groundbreaking, or really all that different from what most scholars I know are doing implicitly or explicitly. But there's something implied in here that I do think is something we've lost a sense of: what literature itself tells us about our own world. When I think about the academic blogs that I read , and write, for that matter, it occurs to me that few or even none of us regularly cites the literature we study when considering the big questions that we are often considering.<br /><br />Why don't we do this, I wonder? Are we so steeped in the dogma of historical contingency that we cannot see the relevance of a Romantic, or Anglo-Saxon, or Modernist text to a contemporary issue? I know we want to avoid the <span style="font-style: italic;">Bartlett's Quotations</span> approach to literature and the Big Questions, but certainly we can do better. This is how we renew our status as public intellectuals, and perhaps how we reinvigorate our apparently flagging discipline.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-33650134213061057092011-05-19T15:25:00.002-04:002011-05-19T15:29:19.572-04:00What else is niceI learned that although revisions on the book were requested, I have a standard contract, rather than a provisional one. Fewer hurdles to clear, and with an August 31 revision deadline, I'm really looking forward to finishing up this project with a little room to breathe.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-89320193369564783082011-05-18T17:10:00.002-04:002011-05-18T17:21:31.261-04:00PacingThe last few summers have been packed with stuff. Last summer fit in both <a href="http://delightandinstruct.blogspot.com/2010/05/summer-grad-class.html">a summer grad course</a> and much of what turned out to be<a href="http://delightandinstruct.blogspot.com/2010/07/writing.html"> a large-scale re-write of the book</a>. The summer before that we welcomed Junebug, and before that I was doing much of the work that brought the edited collection to press (while also, if I recall correctly, working out enough to lose 25 pounds). <br /><br />The point is, I've made my summers count, with plenty of writing, and other sorts of work. This summer, with only a book review, and some manageable revisions to the book project. The kids will be around the house some, but largely we've got childcare for them lined up. So there will be time to work with, which is somethig I've rarely been able to say.<br /><br />I found myself saying to someone the other day, in response to a query about my summer plans, that I though I just might read. That sounds like crazy talk, I know, from an English professor, but it just might work out. when it comes down to it, I'm trying to readjust my pace for this summer, see if I can slow down some. We'll see. We'll see.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36486960.post-12434337858870733682011-05-14T13:36:00.004-04:002011-05-14T13:50:26.809-04:00LuckySo Friday the 13th, in this case, turned out all right, at least as far as I can tell. It was the deadline for which final tenure decisions were mailed out, and since I've only heard positive decisions all the way up the line, I expect that the letter that will come in the mail will be good news. So in that way, Friday the 13th was lucky.<br /><br />But it was also lucky in another way, because the editorial board for the press I've been working with has approved the offer of a contract for my book. This is gratifying for all the usual reasons, and a few extras. First off, since I was able to go up for tenure on the strength of articles and an edited collection, this book will actually count--some five years on--for full promotion. Secondly, this work doesn't just reflect the academic/ intellectual work of a decade, but also much of the theatre work I was lucky enough to be a part of for several years while I was in grad school. So one of many hat-tips to the fantastic women of The Theatre Conspiracy (now sadly defunct). I also feel lucky in another way, for as a man working in the field of feminist theatre and performance, I feel lucky to have been accepted to join perhaps the best published list on gender and performance, one that has produced nearly half of the texts most influential to my thinking. The acquisitions editor I've been working with brought dozens of fantastic feminist theatre scholars to press for the first time, and so to be even a blip in that now-long history feels very fortunate indeed.<br /><br />I'm lucky in lots of other ways, too--I've got a wonderful and healthy family, a solid job, and a lot of advantages. So while my facebook wall has been blowing up with congratulations (relatively speaking, of course--it's not like I won a MacArthur or anything), I feel the need to deflect some of that to gratitude.Horacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662740021328265642noreply@blogger.com2