tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80343994540833059472024-03-24T07:50:59.905-04:00Vaulting and VellumTwo medievalists blogging about the medieval and the mundane.Vaultinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686632678496609427noreply@blogger.comBlogger184125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-5055488682791043432016-05-16T22:42:00.002-04:002016-05-16T22:42:16.812-04:00We're Moving!Sorry for the radio silence for the last... ever. But after three years we're coming back! Just not here. From now on you can find us at:<br />
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<a href="http://vaultingandvellum.wordpress.com/">vaultingandvellum.wordpress.com</a></div>
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We hope you'll come see us from time to time!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08427744198415388482noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-83805372954432145752013-05-08T20:44:00.001-04:002013-05-08T20:44:17.188-04:00Kzoo!V&V have arrived at Kzoo. We have beer and cider and an awesome party room (and private bath!) in Eld 317; bloggy friends should come say hi and have a drink.Vaultinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686632678496609427noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-80424057563710852262013-05-05T20:40:00.000-04:002013-05-05T20:40:08.093-04:00The subject of the blog came up at a recent conference, and it nearly felt like a lie to say that Vellum and I even have a blog at this point. I've been meaning to post more often for many months now - even thought about posting every day in February to try and get back into the swing of things - but nothing's ever come of it. So here's my renewed attempt to dust off the blog and resume contributing to the digital discussion (if only to justify our appearance at the Kzoo blogger meet-up this week).<br />
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One of the challenges to posting has been the matter of content. I have plenty to say about my scholarship, but I'm in the fortunate position where I have a number of people in real life with whom I can discuss my scholarship. By the time I get to a computer, it largely feels like rehashing the same material. I could talk about my program; but though I straddle the pseudonymous line, talking about my program in any detail seems a little too far over the line. I bore myself talking about the work/academia/life balance I try to maintain (and which isn't particularly conducive to finding time to post), which leaves remarkably little worth writing about.<br />
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For now, I'll reintroduce myself. I'm an art history PhD student at Northeast Metropolis University (NMU), working full time in science administration for Scientist Boss (SB). Vellum will have to reintroduce himself, though he's posted far more recently than I have. Mercifully, I've survived the spring semester (hurrah!), and even produced a tentative dissertation topic. My desk is relieved that my research pile will soon be going back to the library or getting filed away for future use.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Internet points for identifying my research topic (or parts of it)</span></div>
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-VaultingVaultinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686632678496609427noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-80025465119399144532012-09-25T08:54:00.000-04:002012-09-25T08:54:01.662-04:00Pedagogy, Bias, and an Entirely Unrelated Amusing Internet VideoLast week, I had my students read a 1988 article by Peggy McIntosh called "The Invisible Knapsack", an abridged version of which can be found <a href="http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html">here.</a><br />
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For those of you who haven't read it, it's on the subject of privilege, especially unseen privilege, as it pertained to the white majority in the United States in the late 1980s. I use the past tense there (with reservation) because of the conversation that took place in my class.<br />
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Given that it is, primarily, a composition and rhetoric class, we spent much of our time on how McIntosh presents her argument, and the effect it has on the reader. But we spent more time than I expected grappling with the relevance of the article to modern readers.<br />
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My students' first reaction was "how old <i>is</i> this, anyway?"<br />
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Back up: The majority of my students are 18 years of age. This means that they were born, by and large, between the first day of January and the last day of December in 1994, and for whom, as <a href="http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2016/">Beloit's Minset List for this year tells us</a> (among other things) "Slavery has always been unconstitutional in Mississippi, and Southern Baptists have always been apologizing for supporting it in the first place" (that state ratified the 13th amendment on 16 March 1995 -- Kentucky beat them to it by just under 19 years). Since they were young enough to be even aware of politics, there have been prominent black figures in the upper echelons of American governance, with Condoleezza Rice serving as National Security Advisor from 2001-5, later replacing Colin Powell as Secretary of State from 2005-9. (And, as the list also notes, since they were eleven, the job of Secretary of State has been a woman's job).<br />
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So it's with a great degree of skepticism that my students came to a list meant to highlight white privilege, with items on it like:<br />
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<i>I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can deal with my hair. </i><br />
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and<br />
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<i>I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race. </i><br />
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and<br />
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<i>I can be sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge" I will be facing a person of my race. </i><br />
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Which, I suppose, fair enough, right? It's easier than ever before to see, especially in cities, the growing cosmopolitanism of America. All colours of culture have been, to a large extent, equally commodified (and so what if that's just because there was a profit to be made and a market to be explored, right?). And the "person in charge" has been a black man for the past four years (long may he reign). But the real challenge was in getting them to recognize that there are still items on the list that continue to be relevant. Especially in places like Arizona, items like this:<br />
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<i>If a traffic cop pulls me over, or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race. </i><br />
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The number of people who get pulled over for "driving while black", "flying while brown", and so on in this country is, in the words of a prominent internet meme, still too damn high. Profiling, I tried to tell them, was a form of racism. And they largely seemed to agree.<br />
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But they also seemed to think that the lion's share of racism in this country was due to economic conditions, ones that, at one point in history were due to racism, but now are due to a repeating cycle of poverty only tangentially and historically related to race. Because if everyone is equal, like they've been brought up to believe, then the problem isn't racism. The problem is money.<br />
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Well, I'm still working on them with that one. We had to get to compositional matters.<br />
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This week I'm having them read an article from Scientific American. <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/2012/09/23/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/">"Study Shows Gender Bias in Science is Real. Here's Why It Matters.</a>" It's part of my ongoing quest to teach them to analyze rhetorical situations, understand bias, and, this week, how genres produce expectations. I'll let you know how it goes.<br />
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Oh, and because I promised in the title, here's a silly video treating the story of Hengest and Horsa as though it were a) historically accurate and b) a first-time home-buyers' TV show. Enjoy?<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-84153082445080440962012-09-17T18:01:00.000-04:002012-09-23T13:49:40.162-04:00Thomas Meyer's BeowulfSo it's been a while since I last wrote something on here, but I'm turning over a new leaf with the beginning of the semester. Expect to see more posts on teaching now that I officially have a composition and rhetoric class all of my very own. There will still be plenty of medieval here to see too -- starting today with a discussion of Thomas Meyer's<a href="http://punctumbooks.com/titles/thomas-meyer-beowulf/"> Beowulf, newly published by Punctum Press</a>. <br />
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Many of you have probably heard the news: there's a new Beowulf in town. What do I think? I think it's better than Heaney's. Let me repeat that: I think this version is better than the one by the Nobel laureate. I'll explain.<br />
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As far as I'm concerned, there are two kinds of Beowulf out there. On the one hand you have hyper-accurate scholarly translations and editions. Of these the generally accepted king is the one that has come to bear the name of its originator: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Klaebers-Beowulf-Fourth-Edition-R-D/dp/0802095674">Klaeber's Beowulf</a>, which I believe is now in its fourth edition. There are others, more or less useful for other specific purposes. I prefer Liuzza's <strike>prose </strike> verse translation (1) for beginners, because it's accurate enough to be useful for scholarly purposes without weighing ten pounds and being very intimidating, but there are others to be sure. The first type are necessarily prose translations: as Bede said when paraphrasing Cædmon's hymn, "verses, though never so well composed, cannot be literally translated out of one language into another, without losing much of their beauty and loftiness."<br />
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The other type are the poetic translations. These aren't ever going to be accurate enough for scholarship, but have other merits, chief among which is their ability to convey (if done well) something of the artistry of the original that escapes prose translations.<br />
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For this type judging the best edition is a matter of taste -- who can say what makes a poem more amenable to one person than another. Each poet -- for this type of translation requires a poet -- makes choices. What meaning will be sacrificed in order to meet the requirements of meter, alliteration, etc.? To be sure, even prose translators must make some of these decisions, but for the poet there are many many more. <br />
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Meyer's poem, for me, captures something visceral about the original that escapes even the best prose editions. It occupies a peculiar meeting place between the wild lunacy of Ginsberg's "Howl", the impassioned restraint of one of Thomas's villanelles, and the original "Geat epic" in Old English. It also, in its formatting, captures something of the performance, of the way we think perhaps it would have been, could have been performed in Old English. Look:<br />
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Especially for the last part of the passage, some comparison is in order. </div>
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Here's Heaney's:</div>
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Then as dawn brightened and the day broke</div>
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Grendel's powers of destruction were plain:</div>
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their wassail was over, they wept to heaven</div>
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and mourned under morning...</div>
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The Old English:</div>
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Ða wæs on uhtan mid ær-dæge</div>
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Grendles guð-cræft gumum undyrne;</div>
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þa wæs æfter wiste wop up ahafen,</div>
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micel morgen-sweg. (ll.126-129a)</div>
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And Liuzza's prose:</div>
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When in the dim twilight just before dawn</div>
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Grendel's warfare was made known to men,</div>
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then lamentation was lifted up after the feasting,</div>
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a great morning-sound...</div>
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Of course Liuzza's is the most accurate rendition, followed by Heaney, and at a distance Meyer -- but which do I *like* better? Which do you? Heaney is trying to straddle the line, I think, between accuracy and artistry, and I think Meyer has somewhat heroically decided to throw his hands in the air. He's given up the cause of literal accuracy and gone for something else, accuracy of the soul maybe. In the end, it's all up to a matter of taste, but in my opinion, we don't need another accurate translation. We have those. </div>
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Meyer's version fills another need.</div>
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(1) It has been pointed out to me that Liuzza's translation, though it stresses accuracy over many formal concerns (like alliteration) is in fact a verse translation with an admittedly quiet four-stress line and medial pause. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-6236836796380428422012-06-27T11:14:00.003-04:002012-06-27T11:14:50.649-04:00Vaulting!<a href="http://www.davidstephensonart.com/Portfolio.cfm?nK=13150&nL=1&nS=0#0" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Photos of vaulting by David Stephenson</a>Vaultinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686632678496609427noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-67727493921646095382012-04-16T19:13:00.004-04:002012-04-17T20:28:21.209-04:00Righteous angerOffered with only one comment.<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg79T_fz_HAHPtvj0my9QI4dLgV6rYK3hicwZfBJa2Yd0LjhzXx5Q9OKpunqYzthNDrAMX2iA1UUI4lEs4w5X2_fHU4AF4DHJMHcuMaR0ox_oxxo1tuLPpa4YF9F0uG4UHLyA7Jo5WlZLEz/s1600/cut+miniatures.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 230px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg79T_fz_HAHPtvj0my9QI4dLgV6rYK3hicwZfBJa2Yd0LjhzXx5Q9OKpunqYzthNDrAMX2iA1UUI4lEs4w5X2_fHU4AF4DHJMHcuMaR0ox_oxxo1tuLPpa4YF9F0uG4UHLyA7Jo5WlZLEz/s320/cut+miniatures.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5732140933840032802" /></a><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000ee;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div>That comment is, of course, "Fuck you, anonymous miniature trimmer. Fuck you and your shitty scissors."</div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>-Vaulting</div>Vaultinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686632678496609427noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-37186354575025892852012-04-16T17:07:00.000-04:002012-04-16T17:07:24.661-04:00On Introversion and Academia, or, Take a Deep Breath and Stop Blaming IntroversionIn the Chronicle of Higher Ed yesterday was an advice column about introverts in academia by William Pannapacker. <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Screening-Out-the-Introverts/131520/">Link here</a>.<br />
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He brings up a lot of good points, especially that academic careers demand an eccentric combination of activities comfortable for both introverts and extroverts (studying alone for long periods vs. standing in front of large numbers of people to explain what you've found -- not to mention the obligatory conference schmoozing and job interviews).<br />
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But as someone who's always been introverted (having taken the meyers-briggs probably a dozen times over the years and always having scored something beginning with "i") I still have to take issue with his confusion of introversion with a kind of anxiety about social situations. Introversion and extroversion are about where you get your energy, from being alone or from being social. It's not the same as being shy.<br />
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For example, discussing the problems faced by introverted graduate students:<br />
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<blockquote>Meanwhile, most graduate students are teaching for the first time, and the introverts are constantly worried about how their reticence will damage their credibility in the classroom: Will my hands tremble, will my voice quaver, will I be able to smile naturally? Will they challenge my authority?<br />
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Social anxiety is no more a necessary marker of introversion than extroversion, though perhaps it is a trait more common in introverts because of a lack of practice in social situations. I am no more nervous in front of a class of students than I am sitting in a pink bathrobe at my computer at two in the afternoon with a beer in my hand. I was the very first time, but it had nothing to do with my introversion and everything to do with the fact that it was something new (the getting up in front of class, not the pink bathrobe). It's like going on a first date. If you're not a little nervous, you're in the minority.<br />
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That's because being comfortable in front of people isn't anything to do with extroversion. It's about being comfortable in your own skin, being unafraid of being foolish, and being aware that you are your own worst critic (Unless you're in a job interview. Then you're looking right at your worst critic who for some reason you weren't expecting to be there, but who <i>totally is right there</i>. Where's my scotch?) <br />
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Now if we were talking about being <i>exhausted</i> after half an hour of rubbing shoulders with (even pleasant) eminent scholars at Kalamazoo, or after speaking for an hour to recalcitrant students who really couldn't care less whether it's "could care less" or "couldn't care less", then I'd be right with you. That's exhausting stuff. I used to wish I smoked so I could take quiet outdoor breaks every hour -- now I just take mental health breaks to "get some fresh air". <br />
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But I don't get shaky in front of a crowd, and I'm not made nervous by meeting new people. It's just like going scuba diving: the faster you jump in, the more you get done before you need to come up for air. <br />
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And that's my two cents for the afternoon.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-14451765183363234042012-03-05T09:02:00.000-05:002012-03-05T09:02:47.101-05:00Readers! (And Writers?)Good lord, I feel like a kid who just got his first upvotes on reddit* - we still have readers! :) Hello, all! <br />
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And so, after shuffling back through my papers, I realize I said I would post about pedagogy. <br />
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At Gothic Revival University, as at many such institutions across the country, a system has evolved whereby graduate students from the English department are conscripted to teach the teeming hordes of first-year students to "write." Not just the first-year English students, mind, but *all* the first-year students. <br />
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In actual fact, as at many institutions across the country, the majority of first-year students in these classes are *not* English students, because most English students "test-out" or "AP-out" of the requirement. This leaves English graduate students in the unenviable position of teaching everyone *but* English students how to write. <br />
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Perhaps you can see the problem.<br />
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Have you ever heard a professor in a non-English discipline complain "why hasn't anyone taught these students to write?" Well, someone has, probably to the best of her abilities. The problem is, Dr. History/Anthropology/Physics/Theology/Whatever professor, English graduate students rarely have the call to write History/Anthropology/Physics/Theology/Whatever papers, and so have a bit of a challenge teaching students (who could be going into any or none of the above fields) to write for those fields.<br />
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"Oh, but surely someone could have taught them how to write a paper!"<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghzRj6GUo3wfmU05etaM7UkSiXnm-LKvEjtNPiGfBA1fniA759G4bExFS8ljceT60hGp69e0h-RpYZui0nQwBgGCMUXpHEw_De9LviB89MCO3SvUDeLUUcAxMWEE50BUjJAufmHEuk1ME/s1600/scumbagprof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="277" width="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghzRj6GUo3wfmU05etaM7UkSiXnm-LKvEjtNPiGfBA1fniA759G4bExFS8ljceT60hGp69e0h-RpYZui0nQwBgGCMUXpHEw_De9LviB89MCO3SvUDeLUUcAxMWEE50BUjJAufmHEuk1ME/s400/scumbagprof.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Le sigh.<br />
<br />
What I love about being a Medievalist is that we are, like all cultural studies fields, forced to work in multiple disciplines simultaneously. I hate it a little too, but it's in the same way I hate exercise, eating well, and going to bed early enough to not be completely knackered at 6:30am when I get up (all of which I do my best to do). American Studies is probably the closest modern analogue from a methodological standpoint (even if they do at times complain about their supposed lack of sources**). Basically put, we know better than most that there are profound and subtle differences in the way one writes an English paper, a history paper, an art history paper, and an archaeology paper. Primarily, it has to do with what's assumed.<br />
<br />
In English, it's taken for granted that your reader has read the text in question (summary is the cardinal sin). It's also taken for granted that the text's relationship to the present reader is at least equal to if not vastly more important than its relationship to its time and place of origin.*** Pretty much only Historicists and New Historicists think that texts are inseparable from their origins. I can't tell you the funny looks I get for asking what the cultural relevance is about certain readings of texts ("yes," I might say, "but what does this tell us about the way we can read the culture at the time of the text's composition?" ... crickets).****<br />
<br />
In history, it's assumed that you will be skeptical of your sources. It's assumed that primary source documents are historical artifacts. It's assumed that an anthropological study is pertinent evidence that can be used to support your thesis.<br />
<br />
And I have it on good authority that for the most part art history these days is as "presentist" as English (and just as "theory-bonkers", to borrow a phrase). <br />
<br />
Basically, every discipline teaches "how to write" differently. Yes, I can try to teach students to organize their thoughts, to analyze a rhetorical situation, to use topic sentences; but I can't make them adept at writing in whatever specific discipline they're going to move into, because I'm not an expert in that field.<br />
<br />
Me, I think each department should have its own first-year writing classes. You're an art history major? Congrats, here's the "words and images" class. You like business? Here's your "commerce communication" class. Doing anthropology? Here's your class on "the scientific method in writing".<br />
<br />
But until such time as your department decides to teach the specifics of writing in your discipline, please don't rag on the poor English graduate students. We don't know your disciplines; some of us barely know our own.<br />
<br />
Hell, at this point we'll be happy if they come out of our classes with the ability to write an argumentative thesis and to use the right "their," "they're", or "there". <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
*also, I did just get my first upvotes on reddit, for pointing out that making one's bed in the morning is not an indicator of success in life. Go figure.<br />
<br />
**Come on, Americanists: if we Medievalists had a tenth of the surviving documentation you have, we'd have stomped out the moniker "the Dark Ages" a century ago. Just sayin'.<br />
<br />
***Their <a href="http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2009/08/logophilia-and-lucidity.html">originary geotemporality</a>, if you will. Hats off to JJC for being both brilliantly incomprehensible and perfectly reasonable at the same time. <br />
<br />
****The author is dead; long live the author-function.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-55858918947204432302012-02-29T10:39:00.000-05:002012-02-29T10:39:37.258-05:00Happy Leap DayHappy February 29th to one and all, and especially to those who get to celebrate their birthday on the right day for once :) In honour of the peculiarity of the day, here's a peculiar story, <a href="http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/historical/a/leap_year.htm">via the interwebs</a>, about Saints Patrick and Bridget and popping the question:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Another tall tale (there's no reason to believe it's anything but) dates the origin of ladies' privilege to the 5th century, around the time (speaking of tall tales) St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. As the story goes, St. Patrick was approached by St. Brigid, who had come to protest on behalf of all women the unfairness of always have to wait for men to propose marriage. After due consideration, St. Patrick offered St. Brigid and her gender the special privilege of being able to pop the question one year out of every seven. Some haggling ensued, and the frequency ultimately settled upon was one year out of four — leap years, specifically — an outcome which satisfied both parties. Then, unexpectedly, it being a leap year and St. Brigid being single, she got down on one knee and proposed to St. Patrick on the spot. He refused, of course, bestowing on her a kiss and a beautiful silk gown in consolation.<br />
</blockquote><br />
Really, this should be an apology for not posting more, but I don't think anyone reads this anymore, so to whom would I apologise? Sorry, google's crawler bots! :) If someone does read this, leave a note and I'll post next week about the exciting world of pedagogical theory, in which I am currently mired.<br />
<br />
T'ra!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-6756890891160985172012-02-01T15:33:00.000-05:002012-02-01T15:33:23.347-05:00This May Seem Like a Strange Question...Someone asked me the other day, and I really couldn't come up with a satisfactory response:<br />
<br />
"Why, in English departments, do we write book-length works of "criticism"?"<br />
<br />
Oh, in the past, I think it was because there were essentially two options: small things, that is to say, articles which could be compiled in paper journals or book-length publications; or monographs of book length, for book-length publication. <br />
<br />
Maybe it's only a question to me because I can't at this point imagine having a book's-worth of analytical things to say on a single topic, or perhaps because, being raised in the digital age, I feel a peculiar affinity for middling-length pieces for which there never used to be any applicable publishing medium. Or perhaps I've read too many book-length works of analysis that really could have been two or three short papers but felt the need to expand themselves to the size of a book for economic (or other?) reasons.<br />
<br />
This isn't to imply any sort of value judgement. I'm just throwing this out there.<br />
<br />
What do you think? That is, if a) there is a you reading this, and b) you have thoughts.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-58904877707108770552011-12-20T20:18:00.000-05:002011-12-20T20:18:10.141-05:00A Message from the PastThe Ghost of Christmas Past sent me an alumni relations letter today. I think it's a jpeg from the early 90s. I was tempted to dust off my old 386 and see if it would look any better in Windows 3.1 - what do you think, readers?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieQsuSUDzu_V1hoKV5udjCMWYtDO3SleFecHDxlgknCJNioEgTaHHJMHqjLswM_NZjwXlxpT9OvW_N80zr2X21vuQfSR9yY9Ow8fnvRAWGZGmXX0n705i-ScETYBhVtY7_AKsK8FnPs14/s1600/lowresyork.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="266" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieQsuSUDzu_V1hoKV5udjCMWYtDO3SleFecHDxlgknCJNioEgTaHHJMHqjLswM_NZjwXlxpT9OvW_N80zr2X21vuQfSR9yY9Ow8fnvRAWGZGmXX0n705i-ScETYBhVtY7_AKsK8FnPs14/s400/lowresyork.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Is this a sign that my overseas alma mater is so short on cash that they've gone back to their old store rooms and unpacked the old Apple IIs? Should I be sending them whatever I can spare out of my below-the-poverty-line stipend? Only time will tell.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-9520200646980287882011-12-13T22:22:00.000-05:002011-12-13T22:22:45.053-05:00LiegeI read this article <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16161746"> about the attack in Liege</a> today. Not that I think anyone over there will ever find their way to our little corner of the web, but first let it be said our thoughts are with you.<br />
<br />
But I study language, and the language in the article said something I couldn't ignore:<br />
<br />
"The latest victim to die was an 18-month-old girl whom doctors had fought for several hours to save."<br />
<br />
They fought for several hours.<br />
<br />
It's a common enough phrase. When doctors work all-out, we say they're fighting to save a life. But who are they fighting?<br />
<br />
I think it was Laurence Lessig who pointed out that in Western culture, we wage war on everything. In America especially. War on Drugs. War on Poverty. War on Homelessness. War on crime. We're fighting hunger, fighting sickness, fighting inequality.<br />
<br />
So when we say the doctors were fighting to save an 18-month-old girl, who do we say they were fighting? We don't say it out loud.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure why we don't. Maybe it's out of fear, respect, or wonder at our own tenacity. Those doctors, if they were fighting at all, were fighting the one thing some people might say we have no right to fight: death itself.<br />
<br />
I don't say that. <br />
<br />
I'm not saying I want to live forever. But I sure wouldn't mind pushing back the inevitable for a few hundred years. Maybe even a few hundred years past that. You never know, we may be the last generation to ever have to die. Technology's progressing. If the singularity arrives I'll give you a call. <br />
<br />
Talk about a bottom-of-the-ninth home run that'd be: the real shot heard round the world.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-44550396746490860492011-11-27T20:07:00.000-05:002011-11-27T20:07:29.832-05:00Sprint to the FinishSorry we haven't been posting more, dear readers. Who would ever have thought teaching and taking classes (while, in Vaulting's case, holding down a full-time job to boot) to take such time? Nevertheless, as we all enter the home stretch, the sprint to the finish, we'd like to take a moment out of our schedules to wish you all the very best. Unless a miracle takes place, you'll hear from us some time after the 21st of December. Good luck to you all.<br />
<br />
Best,<br />
<br />
V & V.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-63407667021391279672011-11-11T18:21:00.000-05:002011-11-11T18:21:24.370-05:00"Happy Veterans' Day"Every now and then I'm struck by a major cultural difference between the United States and my home and native land. November the 11th is certainly one of those times. Today I spent half an hour watching the services going on in Ottawa, because there wasn't anywhere here paying attention. Judging by one comment I saw on Facebook today, I feel as though perhaps I wouldn't have wanted to go anyhow.<br />
<br />
"Happy Veterans' Day" it said. I think that's missing the point.<br />
<br />
Today isn't a day for flag-waving, for patriotism, for nationalism. In Canada we call it "Remembrance Day," and it's a time for just that: remembrance.<br />
<br />
We remember those who served: those who died and those who lived, forever changed by the service that we asked of them. We remember that war is not glorious, it is not heroic, it is not fair. We remember that those of us who have not fought are ourselves in some measure responsible for the suffering of those who have. We remember that there is no price we can pay, that there are no words we can say, that can make up for their sacrifice. We cannot repay that debt with simple gratitude. We remember that war is and should be a measure of last resort, and we weigh its consequences with heavy hearts.<br />
<br />
But it is right and necessary that we do this. Attention must be paid.<br />
<br />
We do not say "happy" anything.<br />
<br />
We say "we remember."<br />
<br />
We say "Je me souviens."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-92035152574924966942011-11-10T19:06:00.000-05:002011-11-10T19:06:25.928-05:00"Medieval" my foot: a rant.You know what really irks me? What really gets under my skin? When people can't be bothered to think about the words they're using. Most specifically (and thoroughly unsurprising), for me, it's the improper use of the word "medieval". It's a word near an dear to my heart.<br />
<br />
So that said, what's got me rolling is this paragraph from an article linked to today by <a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/11/10/medieval-marketing.htm">Boingboing.net</a>:<br />
<br />
It's a blog post called <a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/medieval_marketing.html">"Medieval Marketing"</a> by a fellow named Grant McCracken, a research affiliate at MIT, and the author of a book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chief-Culture-Officer-Breathing-Corporation/dp/0465022049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320968689&sr=8-1">Chief Culture Officer</a>. The problem with this article isn't that it's wrong. That I really can't say. Mostly, I think the article was about modern advertising techniques. Or perhaps post-modern ones. Past "form follows function" to the enticement of a mystery. Lovely.<br />
<br />
But as far as I can tell, it's got nothing to do with the medieval. The only place the word even shows up, apart from the title, is in this paragraph:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>The medieval world took for granted that the universe was filled with secret messages, placed there by God and the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Elizabethan-World-Picture-M-Tillyard/dp/0394701623/">correspondences</a> on which the world was built. What did not come from God or nature was made by man in the form of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Comely-Frontispiece-Emblematic-Title-page-1550-1660/dp/0710085540/">emblems, icons, and insignia insinuated into public life</a>. The home of Sir Francis Bacon was covered with arcana. Only people with a keen eye and a university education could make sense of it.</blockquote><br />
Take note of those links in there, too. I preserved them just for you. Have you looked? Do you know what I'm going to say next? Please, allow me:<br />
<br />
Elizabeth I was not medieval. Sir Francis EXPLETIVE Bacon WAS NOT MEDIEVAL. A book called "The Comely Frontispiece: The Emblematic Title-page in England, 1550-1660" is not nor cannot be in ANY WAY ABOUT THE MEDIEVAL because one of the ways we've decided where the modern era begins is WITH INVENTION OF THE EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE PRINTING PRESS.<br />
<br />
<i>deep breath</i><br />
<br />
Look, I don't know if this guy's ideas are valid. The ones about marketing and culture probably are. But come the heck on: if you can't use the word "medieval" right, just leave it to the experts, will you? And please, leave the Dan Brown schlock out of it too. Sub Rosa my ass.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This rant has been brought to you by the Foundation for Stress-Free Graduate Students, the letter 3 and the number Q.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-16695573305798381852011-11-08T08:48:00.000-05:002011-11-08T08:48:30.596-05:00Dispatch From the Department of Redundancy DepartmentRegarding a minor but persistent annoyance:<br />
<br />
"Compare and contrast" -- let's stop saying this, shall we? <br />
<br />
The former means to examine similarities and differences, and the latter means to merely examine the differences. <br />
<br />
Unless you really want the differences twice, please stop asking your students to do both. I'm tired of having to explain to smart-alecky students that yes, it is completely redundant (if agreeably alliterative) to use both.<br />
<br />
Sincerely, <br />
<br />
Vellum<br />
Chief Pedant<br />
Department of Redundancy DepartmentUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-4575353288842686332011-10-23T00:21:00.000-04:002011-10-23T00:21:12.675-04:00Quick: write about something that isn't politics!I've been having trouble not posting about political things recently, as you may have noticed. So instead, I'm going to post about a book I read recently: Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story". I'm going to try not to include snark, but I'm sorely tempted.<br />
<br />
See, the thing is, the book is an absolute darling to the critics. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/books/27book.html">New York Times called it</a> "a book that not only showcases the ebullient satiric gifts he demonstrated in his entertaining 2002 debut... but that also uncovers his abilities to write deeply and movingly about love and loss and mortality." <a href="http://www.salon.com/2010/07/25/super_sad_true_love_story/">Salon.com said</a> it is "a high-wire act, pulling off a novel that’s simultaneously so biting and so compassionate... Shteyngart, while unfailingly shrewd and funny, wasn’t always this tender." Ron Charles, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR2010072705665.html">writing for WaPo, says</a> "This may be the only time I've wanted to stand up on the subway and read passages of a book out loud."<br />
<br />
And I really, really didn't like it. At all.<br />
<br />
And I've been trying to figure out why.<br />
<br />
Shteyngart has created a New York of the (supposedly) near future, where consumerism, techno-centrism, and solipsism rule. The story follows the day-to-day life of one Lenny Abramov, son of Russian Jewish immigrants, living in an America on the verge of economic (and moral) bankruptcy. Dollars come in two varieties: regular and Yuan-pegged; a cheerful cartoon otter decorates the US embassies of the world, with the caption "The Boat Is Full, Amigo!"; people of all creeds and colours spend their time glued to a device called an äppärät (read: more engrossing iPhone) ordering clothing from clothing stores named "JuicyPussy" and "AssLuxury"; the "younger generation" speak in abbreviations like JBF (Just Butt-F*cking) and TIMATOV (Think I'M About To Openly Vomit); books, sorry "bound, printed, nonstreaming media artifacts", are only for the old, because the kind of literacy needed to enjoy Tolstoy is over.<br />
<br />
It's satire, though, and so this is supposed to be okay. <br />
<br />
...Except.<br />
<br />
See, the way I think satire is supposed to work is, well, take my favourite example: Swift's "Let's Feed Irish Babies to the Poor" (known more properly as his "Modest Proposal"). In it, Swift adopts a point of view opposite to his own and magnifies it to the point of absurdity to make it clear how batsh*t insane this idea is. So he's not saying "hey, let's take those Irish babies and feed them to the Irish poor -- it'll kill two birds with one stone" he's saying "this is this kind of crap you d*ckheads are proposing and it really has to STOP." See also: Steven Colbert.<br />
<br />
And if that's the way this book were operating, I think I'd be more on board with it. This book takes all the things that old, curmudgeonly people are afraid of about the current pace of progress, all the "get-off-my-lawn" crap like "kids these days don't know how to read", "kids these days have no attention span", "kids these days are too sexualized", and "kids these days are crude disgusting excuses for human beings", and turns them into a reality. Turning those dials (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/">as Nigel Tufnel might say</a>) "to eleven" makes those criticisms seem ludicrous.<br />
<br />
Because, let's face it, they are ludicrous. The future is scary as hell, but it's also promising as heck. Thanks to the primarily text-based web, more people read than ever before. And if it's not the classics, then it's in new modes of literacy -- in the creation and distribution of videos, images, memes -- hell, we're even crowdsourcing science-fiction storylines and selling them to movie-makers now! We're remixing, redistributing, reinventing ourselves every day and it's not shallow, it's not coarse, it's not in any way a lessening of ourselves as a culture. It's bigger, it's better and it's way the hell scarier than that. It's NEW. And that doesn't always mean "out with the old," but it does sometimes mean a shift away from it.<br />
<br />
Which is, I think, the problem I have with this book. You see, I don't think it's satire. I think I wish it were satire. But I've met Gary Shteyngart, and I don't honestly think it is.<br />
<br />
I think the way the creation of this book went was that he took all the things he didn't like about our culture -- the misogyny, the consumerism, the solipsism, the growth in what only a member of the New York Literati could call "illiteracy" -- and yes, he turned them "to eleven". But he didn't do it to prove the absurdity of fearing them. He did it to try to show that the misogyny, consumerism, <i>et al.</i> were absurd. He's not saying that being afraid of change is absurd; he's saying that the direction our culture is headed in is absurd. <br />
<br />
And I <i>like</i> the direction our culture is headed in.<br />
<br />
Because I don't think we're anywhere near as consumerist, misogynist, technology-addled, over-sexed, and terrified of human contact as he seems to. Having seen him speak in person I believe he actually links technological culture -- blogging, vlogging, tweeting, facebooking, and so forth -- with a crippling, world-changing solipsism, and with the consumerism, misogyny, and "illiteracy" that accompanies it.<br />
<br />
But I don't think his book can ever support it. <br />
<br />
In person, he spoke of the death of journalism, of how something great was being lost. He spoke of how, in his book, everyone's a broadcaster -- but they're broadcasting inane garbage to nobody, because everyone's so involved in their own lives that they never actually listen to other people. <br />
<br />
In the book, there are "Media" people (always with a capital-M) who broadcast in real-time from their äppäräti to tens of thousands of viewers. But try as he might to suggest that this is about too many broadcasters and not enough viewers (or, as he repeatedly said to us, too many MFA-endowed novelists and not enough readers) the novel shows something different. To me, anyway. To me, it shows a digital world where news has been democratized. Where the censors can't stop local news about local protests getting around, because they can't block every feed. Where an ordinary schmoe can get the eyes and ears of ten thousand viewers with a glorified iPhone for five minutes to rant about politics, society, or culture.<br />
<br />
I guess what it comes down to is that I'm optimistic about the future, and this book couldn't be further from it. I guess I don't find it very funny because I think it's over the top for the wrong reasons. And I guess I feel like even Shteyngart can't paint a picture of a future I won't like.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-15468679569756442072011-10-16T21:15:00.000-04:002011-10-16T21:15:28.689-04:00"On the Eve of Change," or, "What I Wish I'd Hear From The Mouth Of A Politician In America"<i>Sometimes, when I'm bored or frustrated, I take a little time to practice my rhetoric and polemic. I think to myself, in a perfect world, what would my ideal political candidate say in a speech? And then, because I'm me and not someone sensible, I waste an hour of my life writing that speech. As Vaulting has said (even today) "You have some weird hobbies." And so, without further ado, a political speech by no-one and to everyone, promising the world and asking for patience.</i><br />
<br />
*Our hero, the POLITICIAN enters STAGE RIGHT. S/he stands at the podium before a crowd.<br />
<br />
POLITICIAN: When soon-to-be president John F. Kennedy took to the podium in 1960, he spoke about a “new frontier,” and also about the old one. On a July night, he stood in Los Angeles accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidential candidacy, and he tapped into something beautiful and something brutal, something that at once spoke of the proud age of the country and of its future: the very myth of America. <br />
<br />
*The POLITICIAN pauses, then continues.<br />
<br />
POLITICIAN: He said:<br />
<br />
“I stand tonight facing west on the what was once the last frontier. From the lands that stretch 3000 miles behind me, the pioneers of old gave up their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to build a new world here in the West.” <br />
<br />
He called upon all Americans, who he said “stand today on the edge of a new frontier... a frontier of unknown opportunities and paths, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats... For the harsh facts of the matter are that we stand on this frontier at a turning point in history.”<br />
<br />
He was talking about the long and sometimes regretfully executed “twilight struggle” of the cold war. For Kennedy the forces that posed the danger were external. The forces of communism. The forces of dictatorship. The forces of despotism. <br />
<br />
*The POLITICIAN looks meaningfully at the crowd, and continues.<br />
<br />
POLITICIAN: But today we stand on a different precipice. We stand at another turning point. <br />
<br />
Today there are two visions of the West fighting for supremacy. On the one hand we have fear, and we have greed, and we have the relentless individualism that characterizes not only “what's mine is mine” but also “might makes right”. We have the idea that we don't owe anyone anything because we did it all ourselves, on our own.<br />
<br />
On the other hand we have an older, more dignified vision of the American Dream. We have the America of the last century that said to the world with open arms, send us your tired and poor, send us your huddled masses yearning to be free. Give them to us, because they are like us. Give them to us so that we might help.<br />
<br />
For Kennedy, the forces that posed the danger were external. But today things are different.<br />
<br />
Today the new frontier we must bravely face is inside ourselves. Today the new frontier is one of compassion. Compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves. Compassion for the sick, the old, the tired, the unemployed. Compassion for a broken America yearning to be fixed. <br />
<br />
And we can fix it.<br />
<br />
But it can't be done in half-measures. We can't just put a patch on things and say “that'll do”. We've done that too many times of late. Fixing America isn't something that can be done overnight. It isn't something that can be done with a single bill or a single election. <br />
<br />
Kennedy was asking America to gear up for a long twilight struggle, and so am I. But this isn't a struggle that can be won with backdoor deals and tradecraft, not with guns and not with fear. Today I'm asking you to settle into the trenches and fight for the restoration of a Compassionate America. An America that sets the bar higher for what its citizens can expect. An America that treats the downtrodden with respect. An America that asks more of itself. An America filled with good, honest, hard-working Americans that says with open arms to each other and to the world, we're in this together. <br />
<br />
*The AUDIENCE breaks into applause, and the POLITICIAN puts up a placating hand before delivering a final line.<br />
<br />
POLITICIAN: It's time to face that new frontier. Let's do it together.<br />
<br />
*There is much APPLAUSE and also HEAD SCRATCHING. <br />
<br />
*EXEUNT OMNES, pursued by A BEAR.<br />
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<i>It's been a long day.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-47657726701380436122011-10-15T20:51:00.000-04:002011-10-15T20:51:58.615-04:00Liberty is one of the 99%Today, you may have noticed a lot of stuff going down in a city near you, all tied up with the We Are The 99% movement. So I thought I might share something I learned recently.<br />
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When the Statue of Liberty was being built, there wasn't a lot of support from the people up top. They desperately needed 100,000 dollars to build something for the statue to stand on. Grover Cleveland, then mayor of NYC, vetoed a bill to provide half that money. Congress couldn't get its act in gear. The next bit is actually from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty#Fundraising.2C_criticism.2C_and_construction_in_the_United_States">Wikipedia</a>:<br />
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<blockquote>The New York committee, with only $3,000 in the bank, suspended work on the pedestal. With the project in jeopardy, groups from other American cities, including Boston and Philadelphia, offered to pay the full cost of erecting the statue in return for relocating it. Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the World, a New York newspaper, announced a drive to raise $100,000 (the equivalent of $2.3 million today). Pulitzer pledged to print the name of every contributor, no matter how small the amount given. The drive captured the imagination of New Yorkers, especially when Pulitzer began publishing the notes he received from contributors. "A young girl alone in the world" donated "60 cents, the result of self denial." One donor gave "five cents as a poor office boy's mite toward the Pedestal Fund." A group of children sent a dollar as "the money we saved to go to the circus with." Another dollar was given by a "lonely and very aged woman." Residents of a home for alcoholics in New York's rival city of Brooklyn (the cities would not merge until 1898) donated $15; other drinkers helped out through donation boxes in bars and saloons. A kindergarten class in Davenport, Iowa, mailed the World a gift of $1.35.<br />
</blockquote><blockquote>As the donations flooded in, the committee resumed work on the pedestal. In June, New Yorkers displayed their new-found enthusiasm for the statue, as the French vessel Isère arrived with the crates holding the disassembled statue on board. Two hundred thousand people lined the docks and hundreds of boats put to sea to welcome the Isère. After five months of daily calls to donate to the statue fund, on August 11, 1885, the World announced that $102,000 had been raised from 120,000 donors, and that 80 percent of the total had been received in sums of less than one dollar.<br />
</blockquote><br />
There are two competing visions of the American Dream right now. One says from the tops of the skyscrapers and from the ignorant masses hiding behind their television screens: "I have what's mine because I earned it. I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, and if the poor are too lazy to do it themselves then they have what's coming to them". <br />
<br />
The other proclaims <a href="http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/images/hh0041s.jpg">in the poet Emma Lazarus' words</a>, as she has done since 1886, at the very gates of America: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"<br />
<br />
I don't know about you, but I stand with Lady Liberty and the 99%.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-49355316476511179482011-10-14T15:08:00.000-04:002011-10-14T15:08:26.818-04:00A little Amazon Kindle BlegLook, Amazon, we're friends, right? You and me, we go way back to when you started offering paper books for free delivery while I was a poor student. Love the random crap I can buy from you, and the stupid but entertaining ways we netizens can use your feedback columns for ironic and/or comedic hyperbolic ends. <br />
<br />
BUT.<br />
<br />
Stop trying to get me to buy a kindle by "improving" it. I don't care. I don't want an always-on cellular modem on it. I'm not too picky about touchscreens, though I guess they're nice. You want me to buy a kindle, here's what you have to do. It's pretty simple:<br />
<br />
1. Let me read in any format I choose and buy books for it from wherever I want.<br />
<br />
2. Agree that when I buy a book on a kindle it becomes MY property, not YOURS under license.<br />
<br />
3. Don't use it as an advertising platform. When I put down a kindle, I don't want it to decide this is an opportunity to sell me something. Anything. Even if it's the BEST. NEW. WHATEVER. <br />
<br />
That's about it. Until such time as you can announce these things in a way that causes me to believe you, stop sending me the ads. They won't work.<br />
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Sincerely yours,<br />
<br />
VellumUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-86406625464653741612011-10-12T22:14:00.000-04:002011-10-12T22:14:56.307-04:00Religion, Emotion, and SexIt's the end of a rather long day. Mostly good, but long. And I ended my workday about ten minutes ago* by anonymously editing a student essay. I work as an online tutor, helping kids with their essays. It's all legit, we don't edit for them, we just offer suggestions and draw examples from their work to illustrate it. We try to make them better writers, rather than to improve their one specific paper. <br />
<br />
But anyhow, I sometimes get personal response narratives that are very, well, personal. And for me, the most freaky kind is when they write about a personal religious experience. I was trying to put my finger on why while responding to this student, trying to come up with a reason to tread more lightly when talking about the personal salvation offered to him/her by Jiminy Cricket**, when it hit me:<br />
<br />
Writing about personal religious experience is like writing about sex. <br />
<br />
The reason it makes me uncomfortable isn't because I study the devil all the time and have begun to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je8MXiwmNIk">sympathise</a>; it isn't because of the rampant hypocrisy inherent in so many iterations of the religion that always go unmentioned and uninterrogated in these types of narratives; it's that they're so. damned. intimate.<br />
<br />
Learning about someone's faith is like learning what they look like naked. For some people, profoundly good, intelligent people who nonetheless are still strong believers, it can be like seeing a classical nude. For people who are major religious figures it can be like seeing the pin-up performativity of a porn-star. For raging hypocrites like the TV televangelists it's like looking at a nude by Lucien Freud.*** But for people who obviously haven't given it a lot of thought, but who nevertheless feel like sharing their profound truths, it's like catching some poor unsuspecting sod with his pants down. It can be a little embarrassing.<br />
<br />
The challenge with writing about personal religious experience is the same as with writing about sex. If you're going to be earnest and truthful, it's going to be like sex between two normal, non-moviestar people. It's not a bad thing,**** but to the outside observer it's going to be very intimate, and probably more than a little too much information. The challenge is to provide enough information for your readers to follow along, even to emotionally engage, without strapping them down six inches from the action and forcing them to watch.<br />
<br />
So, next time you feel like writing about your Road To Damascus moment, just try to use a bit of perspective, a bit of tact, and a whole lot of circumspection. Otherwise we're going to have to start <a href="http://www.npr.org/2010/12/05/131782830/if-only-all-bad-sex-were-this-fictional">an award ceremony for you, too</a>.<br />
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<br />
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*9:35pm - don't let anybody tell you students don't work hard, I've been up since 6:00am and working since 7:30am.<br />
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**Not his real name.<br />
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***To me, anyway. I really hate his paintings. He really knows how to make naked people look ugly.<br />
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****Indeed, I do believe sex between non-moviestars to be a Very Good Thing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-29366059980201680012011-10-10T19:42:00.000-04:002011-10-10T19:42:37.800-04:00An AnnouncementBefore the announcement, a note:<br />
<br />
<i>As many of you know, Vaulting and I cherish our pseudonymity. We don't hide our real identities flawlessly, by any stretch, and many of our friends in the land beyond the internet know who we are. We think of it as an agreement between friends -- and so many of you are our friends that we very much want to share this news with you. That said, this announcement will in all likelihood let many more of our readers know who we are. If it does, you probably know us well enough that we've decided it doesn't matter that you know. But please: if you do figure us out, keep our little secret. The last thing we want is to have to moderate our opinions on here to protect our future job prospects. </i><br />
<br />
And without further ado:<br />
<br />
After nearly four years and many travails (and travels) together, the lovely Vaulting and I have agreed (on no set timeline, and after a customary exchange of jewelry) to become partners of a most intimate fashion. That is to say: we're not entirely sure when or how, but we're definitely getting hitched! :DUnknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-73695945821704848622011-10-06T21:25:00.004-04:002011-10-07T08:14:48.634-04:00The 99%: Not just the tip of the iceberg this time.@JeffreyJCohen from over at <a href="http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com">In The Middle</a> (among other places) asked yesterday how medievalists and early modernists could "show their support" for the #occupy movement taking place now in many cities around the US. We decided on a hashtag or two (#occupythemiddleages and #occupyhistory) and decided to post on them.<br />
<br />
<strike>His post</strike> @KarlSteel's #occupythemiddleages post is up <a href="http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2011/10/occupythemiddleages-god-spede-plough.html?spref=tw">here</a> and actually has something to do with the middle ages. Mine really won't.*<br />
<br />
Mine's trying to answer the question: "Why a hashtag?" Or, if you like "Why not change your facebook picture, for all the good it'll do?"<br />
<br />
Well.<br />
<br />
First, I think a hashtag is about communication of more than just a single monolithic idea. Certainly it moves the way a solidarity meme does on facebook profile pictures -- everyone turn your picture green to support... a free.. Palestine? -- but it carries with it more meaning.<br />
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Take the symbol of the cross in Anglo-Saxon England (yeah, I went there): the cross itself is a symbol, like a hashtag. You can carry a cross, put up a cross, bury a cross, paint a picture of a cross -- and the weight of the monolithic idea behind it will make it symbolic. A really great cross, of course, will be something like the Ruthwell or Bewcastle crosses, that is to say, covered in "texts". (I have to use the Derridan Scare Quotes (DSQ) because I firmly believe that everything is a text, including the images on the R'well & B'castle Crosses.) Take them as a crude metaphor for the difference between a fb picture meme and a hashtag: the fb picture meme can only carry the monolithic idea, it acts as publicity without nuance. The hashtag can carry links to in-depth analysis, that is to say, to the other 99% of the story. <br />
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What I'm getting at is that we're not just interested in the headline, because that's what part of the problem has been all along.<br />
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This is the first time I've seen a protest movement like this one. It's got nuance, subtlety, and no central focus. The general idea, the headline, is that the American population who are in the lowest earning 99% (that is to say, not the mega-rich) are a little sick of all the rules, all the laws, and all the interest, being geared toward the top earning 1% of the population. But if you want more, you're going to have to talk to just about everyone concerned. That's why I'm not going to try to explain to you what Occupy Wall Street is about. Because I can't. But here's something I can do: I can set up a hashtag, and we can all use it to link to things that help us understand, help us make meaning out of the growing discontent.<br />
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Here are just a few:<br />
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The movement's (semi?)-official <a href="http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/"> tumblr feed, "We Are the 99 Percent"</a> <br />
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<a href="http://occupywallst.org/">Occupy Wall Street</a><br />
<a href="http://www.occupysf.com/">Occupy San Francisco</a><br />
<a href="http://occupyhouston.org/">Occupy Houston</a><br />
<a href="http://occupyboston.com/">Occupy Boston</a><br />
<a href="http://occupyseattle.org/">Occupy Seattle</a><br />
<a href="http://occupylosangeles.org/">Occupy Los Angeles</a><br />
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Religion In American History's post on the phrase <a href="http://usreligion.blogspot.com/2011/10/is-occupywallstreet-church-of-dissent.html"> "Church of Dissent"</a><br />
<a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-protest-map">Mother Jones' Occupy Wall Street Protests Map</a><br />
<a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/10/05/occupy-everywhere.html">boingboing.net's Occupy Everywhere post</a><br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yrT-0Xbrn4">A Clever Guy's Response to Fixed News' Attempts to Entrap Him</a><br />
<a href="http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/local/city-council-to-officially-support-occupy-la-20111005">A News Story On Los Angeles Giving OccupyLA It's Official Support</a><br />
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<br />
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And, as always, the ever-updating <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street"> Wikipedia Entry for Occupy Wall Street</a><br />
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Educate yourselves. The symbol is only the garden gate.<br />
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<br />
<br />
*much?<br />
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UPDATE: it also occurs to me that an unfocused hashtag is the perfect reflection of a movement with no center. Life's like that sometimes. :)<br />
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UPDATE 2: originally this post claimed the link was to a post by J J Cohen, when in truth it was one by Karl Steel. Mea culpa.<br />
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UPDATE 3: added two more links: one to the movement's semi-official <a href="http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/"> tumblr feed, "We Are the 99 Percent"</a>, and one to Religion In American History's post on the phrase <a href="http://usreligion.blogspot.com/2011/10/is-occupywallstreet-church-of-dissent.html"> "Church of Dissent"</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8034399454083305947.post-38755034544536905192011-10-02T20:51:00.000-04:002011-10-02T20:51:33.070-04:00On Methodologies, or, Trying To 'Make Up' With TheoryIt's a Sunday night, and I'm frankly out of things to read until my visit to the Library tomorrow (I know, I should have planned further ahead, <i>mea maxima culpa</i>). So instead, I'm going to bleg about how capital-T theory and I have never really gotten along, and how I'm trying to make up with it.<br />
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Friends of mine know that, as a medievalist interested in the written word (and one who doesn't currently blog at <a href="http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/">In The Middle</a>), I've had trouble with what I call Capital-T Theory. At first I thought it was because it wasn't necessary. I mean really: did we already know so much about the so-called "middle ages" that we had recourse to fall onto reader response criticism or psychoanalysis? We didn't even know how it was responded to when it was written, let alone know enough about who confronted it to bother trying to psychoanalyze them.<br />
<br />
But, live and learn (and get forced into Theory classes during grad school) and you find yourself in awkward positions. No, I don't know what Agamben said about it. And when I tried to look? He lost me by trying to redefine the word "gesture" as something other than, you know, a gesture.<br />
<br />
So of late I've been trying to get back in Theory's good graces. Our Theory, who art in the English Department, etc. etc. be thy whatever. Forgive me Theory, for I have sinned. And so forth. Genuflection, prostration, <i>et al.</i><br />
<br />
Because that same professor who made me <a href="http://vaultingvellum.blogspot.com/2011/09/few-thoughts-on-criticism.html">rethink the word "criticism"</a> has made me rethink Theory.<br />
<br />
What I want, the thing I think I need more of in order to teach, is tools in my toolbox. And my lack of knowledge of Theory has always been a spanner to my plans, if you will (talk about mixing your metaphors). And this professor of mine has got me realizing that without Theory, I'm cutting myself off from a lot of useful tools. <br />
<br />
What she's said is simple: take Theory, use it, and bury it as far under the surface of your writing as you can. It enriches your arguments, underpins them -- but the Theory isn't the point. Theory is a means to an end, and unless you couple it with language that allows for easy communication, that end isn't reached. <br />
<br />
This isn't to say that Theory that tries to break out of the current paradigm by redefining language itself isn't useful. I mean, it might be; I have no idea. I haven't figured out how to understand it just yet. But I won't come out and say it <i>isn't</i> useful just because I haven't figured out how to use it.*<br />
<br />
Take Authorship Theory, for instance. In 1968 Barthes declared the author dead. And I get what he meant. I get what he was reacting to, and if you hold aside the broad, sweeping generalizations Theory likes to make, I can even find it useful. He pointed out (for you medievalists who don't know) that "Lo," and I'm paraphrasing in quotation marks, so sue me, "Lo, we cannot ever know the authorial intention, and who gives a F**k, anyway? All we can know is the reader's reception."<br />
<br />
And then the next year, in French, I think, Foucault pops up and says "Well, I mean seriously guys," and this is a direct quote. No really. "Seriously guys, like, what is an author anyway?" And so he redefined the author as something we can't really reach. But since we still try, he said we should think about the author in terms of the way we ascribe authorship to texts. The "author as function" or, if you will, the "author-function". The thing we create to take the place of the unreachable author. Fair enough.<br />
<br />
About twenty years later a fellow named Alexander Nehamas pops up and says "hold on, dude. The author can't just be anybody. He's got to be plausible, at least." Basically, the author has to be someone the writer of the text <i>could actually have been</i>. For example, we can't just say Jesus wrote everything. That would be weird. And, you know, hard on Jesus.<br />
<br />
So what does this mean? If I'm writing about the Beowulf-poet, how does any of this matter? Well, on the surface, not a heck of a lot. We know we don't know who wrote Beowulf.** We know, thanks to the peculiar integration of history and literature found in Anglo-Saxon studies, that any trait we ascribe to the poet is more a reflection of ourselves and what we need in a Beowulf-poet, than of the actual person (or persons) who wrote the damn thing. But it can help in that, through Theory, we can become aware of our own modes of thought, and more accurately render a reading of the poem and of the poet, knowing full well that what we strive toward isn't the poet him- or herself, but the closest construct we can manage. It can help us in thinking about the audience, in the recognition of the unknowability of the audience of the poem. By calling them the author-function and (as per Kathy Cawsey) the audience-function, we can more accurately name what it is we construct around the few relics of the past we have left for study. <br />
<br />
Foucault seems to have been worried that when we read a poem and know that it's by Shakespeare we imbue it with a meaning, or at least a potential for meaning, beyond what we might otherwise ascribe to it. The same, I think, is true of Anglo-Saxon authors: from assuming the texts in Junius 11 are by "Caedmon" (as has been done in the past) to creating a persona for the Beowulf-poet, we must be cautious in our creations so as not to alter the fragile remains of the texts we have left. <br />
<br />
And so that's why I'm trying to get along with Theory these days. Because sometimes -- when I understand it -- it gives me an insight that helps. Something that helps me to get at the text in a way that lets me get out of my own way. And God knows I need as many of those as I can get.<br />
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*I'm still working on questions like: 1) Why are we still using Lacan's psychoanalysis in English departments when people actually working in psychology wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole <i>even when it was written</i>? and 2) how are you supposed to get through to the paradigm you're trying to change if you opt out of it and thereby sever communication with it? But these are questions I'm trying to deal with. If you know the answers, comments below, please :)<br />
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**Thanks Rumsfeld. Known Knowns, unknown knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns... probably the smartest and dumbest thing the man ever said (at the same time).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4