Humanities: January 2004 Archive Page

I have been enrolled in courses in which my professors used a powerpoint presentation every single day. When required to do a presentation in front of my peers, I also made use of Microsoft Powerpoint in order to present my information. I felt that using such a visual aid was a valuable tool to add multimedia zing to the classroom. Last week, I gave a Chaucer presentation to my Media Aesthetics class. Originally, I wanted to do a powerpoint presentation. However, after I was advised against it by Dr. Jerz, I read "Powerpoint is Evil." When I first read this article, I completely disagreed. However, once I thought about it more, it began to make sense. I'm not saying that powerpoint can never be useful, but it is more appropriate for "corporate sales pitches" (in the words of Dr. Jerz) instead of Chaucer presentations. --Jamee Rice --Learn how to 'learn something new everyday' (Jamee Rice)

Jamee's presentation very cleverly used the Pittsburgh regionalism 'yinz' (for "you") as a way of introducing Chaucer's language. See: Chaucer could have actually related to "Yinzers!"

[I]t is the most common thing in the world for a new English teacher to demand that her students throw out everything they've worked so hard to learn and then start completely from scratch. New semester, new teacher, new rules.

I say we have no right.

I tell my students that, too--we have no right!

How, you might wonder, do I square this conviction with the fact that I explicitly tell my students that they must not write the way a lot of other teachers have taught them to write?

Well, I throw myself on their intellectual mercy, as it were. I appeal to their intelligence as readers. "What sort of writing do you like to read?" I ask them. "What sort of writing do you actually find out there in the real world? Does it look anything like what you were taught to write in your English classes?" -- Tina Blue --AP English Blather (Teacher Blue)

Via Mike Arnzen, whose comments are also well worth reading: "In many cases, AP English writers are also allowed to skip college writing classes...and end up being the very same English teachers that reproduce this problem! Additionally, many composition teachers were skilled enough to 'test out' of composition when they were undergrads, so most of the composition teachers I know NEVER TOOK composition..."

The term 'flash fiction' can be used to describe several genres or modes of writing. Such writing can include traditional or mainstream short-short stories as well as various other types such as American haibun, ghost stories, monologues, epistles, mysteries, myths, tall tales, fables, anti-fables, parables, romance, fairy tales, horror, suspense, science fiction, prose poetry, and more. It can also embrace several "isms" such as magical realism, dadaism, futurism, surrealism, irrealism, and postmodernism. Charles Baxter notes that these short-short stories occupy many thresholds--"they are between poetry and fiction, the story and the sketch, prophecy and reminiscence, the personal and the crowd." --Pamelyn Casto --Dazzled by Flash Fiction (Flashes on the Meridian)

Thanks for the suggestion, Mike.

Media literacy is the buzzword. Already part of the national curriculum in England for older children, the government also wants primary school pupils to have a greater understanding of the hidden depths of TV, films and other media.

More than ever before, children are immersed in a media-saturated world and exposed to television in particular. --Jonathan Duffy --Media studies: The next generation (BBC)

Thanks for the link, Rosemary.

I'm Exhausted... Thank You, Students!Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Thursday is a marathon day for me... class at 11, 2, and a 2 1/2 hour marathon at 6pm. My first class is "Seminar in Thinking in Writing," during which I asked the students to work in groups to come up with sample thesis statements. Ordinarily pretty dry stuff, but the subject matter was the myth of the American family, and I and my RTA Michelle Fairbaugh tried to get them to look beyond a surface-level critique of family ideals of the 50s. I pushed a little harder than I have in the past, in my effort to get students to research (and understand) opposing views rather than simply think of a research paper as an exercise in finding support for what you already believe. Of course, because I pushed, that meant some students pushed back -- and I thought the result was very productive.

Even before Intro to Literary Studies met, I saw a flood of postings on NMJ responding to the "Flash Fiction" exercises that I asked them to do. We didn't have any time to talk about flash fiction in class, because the discussion on Bernice Bobs Her Hair simply wouldn't end. I'll let Tiffany Brattina describe it for you. Since some students prefer a more contemplative environment, I'll have to find a way to vary the class structure and make the quiet ones feel like their contributions are valid... but I personally prefer a lively classroom with multiple conversations going on at once. I'd like to keep that energy!

While my evening lit class wasn't all that lively when it came to discussing e.e. cummings (we had one of those horrid three-minute-pauses-that-seem-to-last-for-an-hour when nobody in the class wanted to speak), they may have been tuckered out by the good discussions we had on "A Jury of Her Peers" and "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" (see Melissa Whiteman's blog about poetry reading as a game. This is the first time I've tried a blank slate/new critical approach to teaching poetry, but it seems appropriate for a survey course that is mostly being taken as an area requirement... I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.)

Yesterday we had some excellent presentations on Chaucer in my Advanced Studies in English: Media Aesthetics course. I had actually been dreading the Chaucer days because I thought the discussion would be like pulling teeth, but these advanced English majors are an impressive bunch.

So... I'm exhausted! I'll probably update this with links to more student blogs, but for now, I'm all tuckered out to smithereens.

And so to bed...

Update, 30 Jan:

Some students who posted their responses to reading and/or writing "fifty word fiction" (found via a search for "fiction"): Diana Geleskie, Amy Blake, Gina Burgese, Amanda Cochran, Johanna Dreyfss, Lori Rupert, Stephan Puff, Karissa Kilgore, Tammy Moon, Jason Pugh, Tiffany Brattina, Paul Crossman.

(I should note that I encouraged them -- but didn't require them -- to post their fiction online; I assume that it was the interview with Mike Arnzen that really got many of them inspired to try it.)

Trolling is like playing chess - there is a point to the game, and that point is to win. Unlike chess, though, there are various ways of winning for the internet troll. These might include:

• gaining credence for false and invidious ideas
• driving bona fide list members, and/or particular groups, out of the mailing list
• dominating the list with messages/posts that they have generated
• gaining recognition or an award for their trolling from fellow trollers
• getting reprimanded by individuals, list managers or internet authorities
• gaining the confidence, trust and support of bona fide list members
• distracting list members from their own bona fide discussions or objectives.

• gaining attention that they cannot get using their real personalities
  

Sometimes trolls operate alone, and sometimes they operate in groups,
but for all of them trolling is a game.
--Beware the Troll (Team Technology)

One of my first experiences with Usenet involved being baited by a troll. I had just written a paper on some subject that was being discussed on a group, and I posted a general inquiry asking whether it would be appropriate to post a paper of X length on the site. I was probably too timid about mentioning the length, because a troll replied with, "sure," and then promptly attacked me for posting "lengthy bullshit." I was very new to newsgroup culture, and it was years before I realized I had been trolled.

Canterbury Tales: A Quick Link RoundupLiteracy Weblog)

Online Google searches for Chaucer typically point to watered-down "study guides." There is a real need for good online material on Chaucer, and there are good sites online that attempt to more than serve the lowest common denominator.

A student backed out of an oral presentation topic late yesterday, so I'm trying to fill in the gap a little.

• When tackling a new topic, I often start my search in Wikipedia, but the page is loading very slowly...
• I found a good bibliography on the structure of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and a
• course website on "Chaucer's Narrative Art," but since I wasn't planning a trip to the library, I'll just blog the links for future reference.
• Luminarium has some quality links to Chaucer work (including audio clips)
• Brother Anthony of Taizen's Introduction to The Canterbury Tales
  • (Brother Anthony writes:)At Chaucer's death, the various sections of the Canterbury Tales that he was preparing had not been brought together in a linked whole. His friends seem to have tried as best they could to prepare a coherent edition of what was there, adding some more linkages when they thought it necessary. The resulting manuscripts therefore offer slight differences in the order of tales, and in some of the framework links. The tales are usually found in linked groups known as 'Fragments'. The customary grouping and ordering of the tales is as follows (the commonly accepted abbreviation for each Tale is noted in parentheses):

    Fragment I (A)
       General Prologue (GP), Knight (KnT), Miller (MilT), Reeve (RvT), Cook (CkT).
    Fragment II (B1)
       Man of Law (MLT)
    Fragment III (D)
       Wife of Bath (WBT), Friar (FrT), Summoner (SumT).
    Fragment IV (E)
       Clerk (ClT), Merchant (MerT).
    Fragment V (F)
       Squire (SqT), Franklin (FranT).
    Fragment VI (C)
       Physician (PhyT), Pardoner (PardT).
    Fragment VII (B2)
       Shipman (ShipT), Prioress (PrT), Chaucer: Sir Thopas (Thop), Melibee (Mel), Monk (MkT), Nun's Priest (NPT).
    Fragment VIII (G)
       Second Nun SNT), Canon's Yeoman (CYT).
    Fragment IX (H)
       Manciple (MancT).
    Fragment X (I)
       Parson (ParsT).

    There is great variety in different manuscripts but I and II, VI and VII, IX and X are almost always found in that order while the tales in IV and V are often spread around separately.

  • Brother Anthony critiques the value of taking too literally the "contest" framework of the narrative. "Is this Tale the best Tale? The Host's proposal of a contest invites the reader to judge all the Tales but at the same time requires the reader to reflect on the criteria by which the Tales are to be judged. What is the purpose of tale-telling, indeed of all discourse? Sentence or solas? Wisdom or pleasure? The value of a tale becomes more and more related to the value of life, and the Parson is not simply a kill-joy when he declares: 'Thou getest fable noon ytoold for me' (you get no fable told by me) and instead offers a treatise on sin and salvation. Chaucer leads the reader to the point where the ability of any fictional tale to tell the truth is challenged, though not necessarily as radically denied as the Parson would wish. The Parson himself is a fictional character, after all, a part of a Tale."
  • "Modern editions are usually based on one of two manuscripts, both written by the same scribe: the Hengwrt Manuscript and the Ellesmere Manuscript. The former, in the National Library of Wales, is the oldest of all, probably copied directly from Chaucer's own disordered papers, but it lacks the Canon's Yeoman's Tale and the final pages have been lost. The latter, now preserved in California, is more complete, and beautifully produced with illustrations of the different pilgrims beside their Tales, but it shows the work of an editor who has removed some of the roughness from Chaucer's lines. "
• Brother Anthony of Taizen's Introduction to the General Prologue
  • "More recent criticism has reacted against this approach, claiming that the portraits are indicative of social types, part of a tradition of social satire, "estates satire", and insisting that they should not be read as individualized character portraits like those in a novel. Yet it is sure that Chaucer's capacity of human sympathy, like Shakespeare's, enabled him to go beyond the conventions of his time and create images of individualized human subjects that have been found not merely credible but endearing in every period from his own until now."
  • The title "General Prologue" is a modern invention, although a few manuscripts call it prologus. There are very few major textual differences between the various manuscripts."
  • While I distinctly remember being taught that the pilgrims were introduced in order of their social prominence (see Klein's notes, III B), Brother Anthony notes what had always troubled me -- this order breaks down very rapidly. It won't help us understand medieval society to take this list of pilgrims as an index to social ranking.

Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth; I have wandered in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can hardly decipher what I write, I am preparing to die just a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born. Once I am dead, there will be no lack of pious hands to throw me over the railing; my grave will be the fathomless air; my body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite. I say that the Library is unending. The idealists argue that the hexagonal rooms are a necessary form of absolute space or, at least, of our intuition of space. They reason that a triangular or pentagonal room is inconceivable. (The mystics claim that their ecstasy reveals to them a circular chamber containing a great circular book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle of the walls; but their testimony is suspect; their words, obscure. This cyclical book is God.) Let it suffice now for me to repeat the classic dictum: The Library is a sphere whose exact center is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible. -- Jorge Luis Borges --The Library of Babel

Julie Young's blog entry about libraries made me think of this short story, which I have occasionally used in my "Writing Electronic Text" course.

Donald sat in the corner of the room, barely illuminated by the dim moonlight filtering through the window. He was trembling badly; the events of the last few hours still storming through his mind. How the hell could he have known? How could he have known? He brought his shaking hands up to his face, and as he hid behind them the smell of fresh gunpowder brought the sickening moment back to him in full force. [Excerpt from a writing sample.]

What you're doing with this kind of opening is: You are forcing us to face the character's raw emotions without giving us any information about the story or any reason to care about the character. It is the opposite of how it has to work. We should not face the emotions until we completely understand the entire situation so that we will feel those emotions ourselves -- and then the character does not have to "tremble badly" and waste our time sitting around while memories "storm" through his mind. --Orson Scott Card --Uncle Orson's Writing Class (Hatrack River)

Orson Scott Card is a science-fiction author whose website includes a wealth of free writing advice. The same lesson also mentions "another common but killer mistake. You are trying to establish his point of view, to see the world through his eyes. However, this description is completely from outside himself -- in fact, it consists of the omniscient viewpoint in which the author talks to the reader, and the character is viewed as through a telescope, from a distance."

I think both issues stem from the tendency of beginning writers to first visualize a scene from a movie, so that their transcription into prose relies too much on external visuals and sounds, rather than on the internal emotions that prose narrative conveys so well.

(Thanks for pointing out the OSC website, Josh.)

A Selection from the Posthumously Published Ernest Hemingway Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, A Very Short Death, c.1959

It was late summer and you were alone in the café. You were sipping vermouth and reading about the war. You liked the way the vermouth tasted good when you drank it with your mouth. The war was going badly.

You tapped your tired fingers on the arm of the wooden chair where you were sitting in the café when it was dark and late. You liked how the chair was made of wood.

"Oh darling, you mustn't talk such rot," she had said. "I'll kill him."

You felt broken and drunk in the cool night and remembered the white boat on the river.

DID YOU?

a. Grit teeth and think about the war.
b. Order a brandy that overflowed and ran down the stem of the glass and think about the war.
c. Notice the electric light hanging over the empty terrace and think about the war.

--The American Canon of the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure (McSeeeney's)

What's extremely funny about this format is that it's not too different from the reading quizzes I give. Since it's so easy nowadays for students to download plot summaries from the Internet, in order to motivate students to keep up on their literary readings, I will make a multiple-choice test, with questions that list four things that did happen in the reading, and one other event that will sound plausible to someone who has only a basic understanding of the plot, but that didn't really happen.

"I always say that while I can't vote, I can damn sure make a difference," he said. "It doesn't feel odd, it shouldn't feel odd, because all Americans should be doing this. We as a country need to be more involved, especially our youth." --Stephen Yellin --Teen Blogger Heads Online (Wired)

I'm being called away, but I wanted to blog this before I forget it. I immediately thought of Ender's Game, an Orson Scott Card novel that features two teenage supporting characters (siblings of the hero) who affect global politics by participating in online discussion groups.

"The most complicated machine ever built got knocked out of the sky by a pound and a half of foam. I don't know how any of us could have seen that coming. The message that sends me is, we are walking the razor's edge." -- Flight director Paul Hill --Columbia's Final Minutes (Newsday)

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|  |    |  |/  /    |   ____|       /   \     
|  |    |  '  /     |  |__         /  ^  \    
|  |    |    <      |   __|       /  /_\  \   
|  |    |  .  \     |  |____     /  _____  \  
|__|    |__|\__\    |_______|   /__/     \__\ 
                                              
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IKEA WALKTHROUGH v2.3.1
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IKEA is a fully immersive, 3D environmental adventure that allows you to role-play the character of someone who gives a shit about home furnishings. In traversing IKEA, you will experience a meticulously detailed alternate reality filled with garish colors, clear-lacquered birch veneer, and a host of NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS (NPCs) with the glazed looks of the recently anesthetized. --IKEA Walkthrough v2.3.1 (The Morning News)

--'She's a Flight Risk' Resumes

Isabella v has started posting again, after a long hiatus (which I noted in December).

I only learned about it after getting an e-mail from "isagirl@hushmail.com" responding to a blog entry I wrote last year.

We copulate, we procreate, the species thrives. Love and every other emotion that we connect to it are the froth of nature'swildness. But if it is froth, it is wonderful froth. But I think that stepping back and admitting that romantic love is not an entity with a life of its own allows us to recognize that love, even romantic love, takes its likeness and continuity from the stories we tell about it. And as stories change, so does that experience. --John Spurlock --Love and Lovesickness 2 (The Blue Monkey Review)

Richard Dawkins's theory of the "meme" (a cultural unit that spreads, almost like a living virus, from brain to brain) is very useful in deconstructing cultural truths that are powerful because they work extremely well. Have you read the story of the creation of the diamond engagement ring custom? It does a great job deconstructing that particular "timeless" myth. (I recently blogged about diamond engagement rings.)

In this assignment you will be required to read/play and answer questions about a book from the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) series of ?gamebooks.? The series was published 1979-1998. Many people assume that electronic literature (interactive fiction, hypertext, what-have-you) is simply a souped up version of CYOA. The purpose of this assignment is to take a closer look at that assumption based on what you know about the history and theory of cybertext. --Matt Kirschenbaum

--Choose Your Own Adventure Assignment (MGK)

Wow. Not only do I love the assignment, I'm in awe of the web environment in which it is presented.

I recently posted a rant against bloated commercial courseware that locks curricular content in a proprietary database; and about seven hours ago I recently posted a comment prompted by a thread I found via Liz Lawley's website, but I didn't know that Lawley is a MoveableType courseware genius.

Torill Mortensen has a post today referencing the ongoing debate about gender balance in the blogosphere. Are there more men, or more women? Are the men or the women more visible? --Liz Lawley --Academic Women and the Blogosphere (Misbehaving)

I found this discussion interesting, especially in light of Andrew Orlowski's sneering dismissal of bloggers as mostly teenage girls.

At our small school, which until recently was all female, social networks are tight. There are about 80 student blogs on our MoveableType installation, of which I'd say about 50 represent students who are currently in my classes (and therefore are forced to blog). One student recently estimated that another 50 students regularly read the blogs of their friends. If this is true, most of them are lurking.

The online social networks typically mirror the offline social networks -- at least, so far as I can tell from my position as a faculty member. The students who regularly comment on each other's blogs tend to sit together in the classroom, although I don't think that group identity correlates with posting frequency. Nevertheless, a critical mass of female students who have been forced to blog for my classes has decided to turn their academic tool into a social one. Some see their roles as welcoming newcomers, answering questions about personalizing the plain-vanilla designs I set them up with, and helping newbies properly interpret comments that come across as snarky or offensive to the uninitiated. And, as we have seen elsewhere in the blogosphere, we have had our share of personal spats that spill over into the blogosphere (though of the two major incidents I can think of, both ended peacefully, with new or renewed friendships).

As a group, the male students who blog for my classes don't participate in this social network. One male student is a bit of a troll, but in the classroom he is personable and cheerful, and those who know him don't find his online persona troubling.

Another three male students who aren't in any of my classes have also requested blogs, and two of these are among the most prolific bloggers on the site. Besides myself, two other male faculty members are blogging as well. Because they are outside the dominant social network, these male bloggers are more likely to post a stand-alone essay on something that the female-dominated social network isn't already discussing. While I have been writing more commentary in my blog in the last year or so, it still leans more towards "professional link log" than "public journal." And because I'm not in a position to give a grade to any of these "outsider" male bloggers, the only way I can encourage/reward/praise their best blog entries is by linking to them. If it is true that men are more likely to blog for professional reasons, and if professional blogs are more likely to have more outbound links, perhaps I am part of a mechanism that inflates the visibility of male professional bloggers.

I don't have any numbers to support my theories, and at 5:15 on a Friday afternoon I'm not about to start looking for any. Time to pack up and head home.

"Not only are we going to New Hampshire ..., we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York! And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House, Yeeeeeaaaaaah!" --Dean Goes Nuts: Howard Dean's 2004 Iowa Caucus Concession Speech Remixes

Howard Dean's supporters mobilized on the Internet, and so have those who find pleasure in mocking the exuberant cry he uttered while rallying his troops during his Iowa concession speech.

Because I don't watch TV news, and I only listen to the radio during my 15-minute commute, I didn't hear the speech. While I had come across opinions that Dean's concession speech was a bit wild, I didn't take them seriously. My opinion has changed.

This website includes dozens of audio remixes. Fortunately there's not much activity on my floor on Fridays, but I closed the door anyway. I'm listening to "Dean's Going to Kokomo" right now, and I can hardy type from laughing so hard. Next up on my playlist is "Magical Dean Space Out."

"Let me see if I can state what is bothering you. I could tell you before the test what to study, what material you should memorize to do well, but I'm not doing that." She smiles a little and says, "Yes." I continue, "I could do that, I could tell you, exactly, all that you need to know. I could tell you what to memorize. But I don't. And you can't understand why I don't." She smiles more broadly. "Yes. Yes! That's it. Why don't you tell us?"

This illustrates what I believe is an underappreciated and growing problem in higher education: a large number of undergraduates, as well as even some graduate students, believe that the instructor's main function is to tell the students what to memorize. And if the students duly so memorize, they believe they deserve A's. --Craig M. Newmark --No Surprises? (The Irascible Professor)

Thanks Josh (who suggests this in a comment attached to "A Student's Plea: Give Me Something Known").

I just had an hour-long conversation with a high school senior who has been accepted to Seton Hill University in the fall, but is still considering his options. He's being recruited for a sports team, and is also interested in broadcast journalism. SHU doesn't have a broadcast program; there is no TV or radio station, so at first I thought the interview would be pretty short. But this student also seemed attracted to the entrepreneurial focus of our school. The fact that men's athletics are expanding so rapidly here (SHU was only recently converted to an officially coeducational institution) means greater access to leadership positions.

I told him that a big school with an established journalism program would be able to prepare him more efficiently to step into the profession, but a specialized broadcast journalism professor teaches a class of thirty freshmen exactly how to do broadcast journalism would be something of an assembly line education. Of course the large school will have access to more resources, but being a big fish in a small pond has its own benefits.

I hope I was able to tap into this bright young man's entrepreneurial instincts and a love for learning. I told him that multimedia projects involving streaming online video would fit very nicely into the new media journalism program (but that he might think in terms of a series of related documentaries rather than a weekly TV show), and he floated the idea of setting up a live webcast of home sports games. Sounds technologically feasible, but I told him he wouldn't just be able to walk into a studio and flip a switch -- we'd have to talk with the tech guys and create a plan from scratch. Somebody who is willing to do that -- to think beyond the parameters of a pre-packaged lesson plan -- is a student who is ready to learn.

Mars Express, circling high above the surface, made the discovery on the Red Planet's south pole, said agency scientist Jean-Pierre Bibring -- an indication that Mars may once have sustained life. --Europe probe detects Mars water ice (CNN)

Interesting... CNN's European version of the Mars story says "More than 40 years of Mars exploration have yielded inconclusive evidence of whether water was present on the planet," while the American version of the story doesn't interpret the previous finds as inconclusive at all: "NASA's Mars Odyssey, also an orbiter, confirmed water ice at the north pole, along with dry ice -- frozen carbon dioxide -- in 2002."

So who gets credit for the discovery?

A few questions spring out from this. It is generally accepted that giving credit for creation is important; is it the same for ?link discovery credit?? Will (should) the practice of linking to sources of links come to be taken very seriously by bloggers, out of a shared concern to keep things fair and transparent, in a similar manner to standards of citation in academia? Should one link to the immediate source or make an effort to trace links back to the original source? (Is it always clear which is ?the? original source?) --Sebastian Paquet --Link Propagation and 'Discovery Credit' (Many-To-Many)

I don't credit metasites like Google News or Blogdex when I find stories there.

If journalist A publishes a quote from a source, journalist B can try to contact the source directly and get him or her to repeat the statement; if the source cooperates, journalist B doesn't have to cite journalist A as the source.

Obsessing too much about link discovery is something like wanting to give credit to the taxi driver who took you to the library where you found the source you were looking for.

Still, as Jill Walker notes, "The economy of links is not product oriented. It is service oriented, and the service is the link." (Seb's article links to Jill's "Links and Power," a wonderful theoretical piece that was well worth a revisit.)

There are times when I first see link A on site X, but I'm not motivated to blog anything about A until I see commentary on site Y. In that case, site Y is being more than a taxi driver -- blogger Y deserves the credit on my blog, even if blogger X had the link first. Or link A might point to a website where articles soon disappear behind a paid subscription wall; in those cases, I'll often Google up a different link on the same subject.

I will say that a link to the original article/document being discussed is vital... it's not sufficient simply to link to the blog that quotes some off-site document. That blog may go offline one day, or the quote may turn out to be inaccurate or taken out of context.

(Suggested in a comment posted by Susan, who credits J-walk.)

I wanted to tell you that I am scared to death of your class... Give me something known. I don't know how to read something and figure out the unknown conflicts. I believe what someone tells me. I don't take hints. If someone wants me to know something they need to tell me. I am not good at reading between the lines. I was never taught in school how to do that. I need help in that area. I don't always remember everything I read. When I study for a test... I have to recite things in my head 50 times before I remember it. What I am trying to say is I am going to give this class my 100%. I will do my very best. It just might not be THE BEST compared to everyone else. I will need a lot of help. -- A student in my American literature surveyA Student's Plea: 'Give Me Something Known'E-Mail)

I was touched by the honesty, passion, and determination in in this student's plea (excerpted here with permission). During the first class meeting, I tried to emphasize how a college-level literature course differs from a high school English class; I am not looking for papers that accurately summarize major plot events, or essays that spit back at me my own lecture notes.

In a literature course, I am of course trying to teach content; I'd like students to know who F. Scott Fitzgerald is, to recognize why A Streetcar Named Desire struck the right cords at the right time, to apply the social and spiritual messages in The Secret Life of Bees to their own lives, and to understand some of the major cultural and historical forces that have shaped American culture in the last century (feminism, Freudianism, Marxism, etc.).

In order to have the kind of deep, thoughtful conversations that build communities and lead us to personal revelations, we will of course have to read the darn texts about which we are supposed to be talking. And my student asks a legitimate question... how are we supposed to read literature? Lurking behind that question is a deeper one... why do these authors make their messages so darn hard to decipher? Why don't they just condense their message down to a few sentences, so that we can read it quickly, think about it, and then move on with our lives?

"Give me something known," my student writes.

In "Tradition and the Individual Talent," T.S. Eliot responds to a very similar statement.

Some one said: "The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did." Precisely, and they are that which we know.

The question is, who knows it? And when and where was it known? For a long time, it was "known" that the Earth is flat, that women have inferior intellects, that the Bible sanctifies slavery, etc. Pythagoras and his followers were greatly troubled by their discovery that the square root of 2 is irrational, because it upset what they "knew" about the cultural function of numbers (to bring order to an otherwise chaotic world).

"I don't know how to read something and figure out the unknown conflicts. I believe what someone tells me. If someone wants me to know something they need to tell me."

But what if someone doesn't want you to know something? What if someone is generating lies, using half-truths to influence your mind?

I have written about Michael Moore in the past; he's a brilliant filmmaker and political activist. All documentary films persuade a particular point of view, and Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" is a masterpiece. Everyone "knows" that "Bowling for Columbine" refers to the bowling class that the killers attended shortly before their spree. But did they attend bowling class? When challenged, Moore claimed that the reference to bowling in the title was a silly distraction. Perhaps more telling is this... have you heard that George Bush held up a plastic turkey for the TV cameras during his secret trip to Iraq? The Washington Post reported that it was indeed a real turkey, roasted and decorated just the way Grandma would have done it.

A contractor had roasted and primped the turkey to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from cafeteria-style steam trays, the officials said. They said the bird was not placed there in anticipation of Bush's stealthy visit, and military sources said a trophy turkey is a standard feature of holiday chow lines.

No reporter ever called the turkey plastic -- it was a real cooked bird, but its purpose was decorative. Look at how Michael Moore introduced the subject.

it turns out that big, beautiful turkey of yours was never eaten by the troops! It wasn't eaten by anyone! That's because it wasn't real! It was a STUNT turkey, brought in to look like a real edible turkey for all those great camera angles.

Nowhere does he call the turkey "plastic," but later he writes that " fake stuffing in the fake bird was just the right symbol for our country" under Bush. While it's defensible to call the turkey a stunt turkey, it was still a real turkey -- not a fake one, just as a stuntman is still a real man. I don't have any information on whether that stunt turkey was eaten or not, and my guess is that neither does Moore.

Moore could simply have written "Bush sucks," but anyone can do that; his method of creating a scene, convincing his readers to become enraged at the scene, and then prompting them to come to a particular conclusion is far more effective than the simple expression my student longs for.

I won't spend any more words writing sweeping romantic generalizations about what literature is, or why the books we study are supposedly great (actually, I choose some that are mediocre; there's even a complete flop on the syllabus). Neither I nor my students has the resources to determine whether George Bush's statement X is a lie, or whether Michael Moore's video clip X is a misrepresentation. We don't have access to the White House or to Moore's cutting room floor.

But we can agree to focus on a particular text that is finite and known; F. Scott Fitzgerald isn't going to write another chapter of "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" anytime soon. We can all read this primary text, which is the complete and total authority of all things relating to the world of "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," and then practice, in a civil and responsible manner, the skills that permit us to compare our interpretations, to probe our disagreements, and to examine the biases and cultural values that condition us to react a particular way to our shared texts.

I can give some practical tips on how to read literature... write notes in the margins; underline unfamiliar words and look them up; read once to get a basic sense of what's happening, scan looking for patterns and ambiguous areas, and then read again with the intention of testing a thesis. For instance, a few years ago when I re-read Bernice Bobs Her Hair, I noticed a racial thread that was extremely obvious once I started looking for it. (I'll have to leave that for later, since my class is about to begin.)

I'm busy working on the new t-shirt order page and getting the forums back up and running, but I don't think you care. All you want are more emotions. You all are animals! Animals I tell you! --Emo Eric --Eric Conveys an EmotionEmotionEric.com)

From "Happiness" to "Getting a great idea... while falling to your doom," Eric posts pictures of himself expressing emotions requested from his fans. He's no Marcel Marceau, but he's amusing. Via Work in Progress.

Technology in American Drama NewsE-Mail)

I recently received this announcement from my publisher: "I'm pleased to let you know that your book, Technology in American Drama, 1920-1950, has been named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title."

A little googling reveals that this award is given to about 3% of the 20,000 or so academic works submitted each year to Choice (a library selection journal).

In a related development, my Amazon.com ranking for this book has now rocketed to 1,679,643 -- I'm rapidly gaining on
Distributional ecology and abundance of dung and carrion-feeding beetles (Scarabaeidae) in tropical rain forests in Sarawak, Borneo (1,652,252).

I'd get mic'd up and have a projection screen behind me the size of a drive-in theater, to use for overheads and analyzing film clips. It was like being a rock star or something -- the performative aspect of teaching took on a grandiose dimension. I'd make a silly joke and the room roared. I'd ask questions and have a field of faces to choose on at random. I could see thirty heads nodding in agreement when I made a point. It was a thrill. A daunting experience, but a thrill nonetheless. --Mike Arnzen --Working the Huge Room (Pedablogue)

My colleague discusses the dynamics of teaching a large class. We don't have huge classes at Seton HIll, but when I have on occasion addressed large audiences, the energy I could sense from the room really is palpable. It's important to focus on that energy, and to have a backup plan so that when it starts to fade, you can quickly shift gears and gain their interest again.

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.

The origins are steeped in history...

The Mary alluded to in this traditional English nursery rhyme is Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary, who was the daughter of King Henry VIII. Queen Mary was a staunch Catholic and the garden referred to is an allusion to graveyards which were increasing in size with those who dared to continue to adhere to the Protestant faith. The silver bells and cockle shells were colloquialisms for instruments of torture. The 'maids' were a device to behead people similar to the guillotine. --Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary: Origin (Rhymes)

I found this on Circant, where I left the following comment:

The Mary Tudor suggestion sounds like it affirms the adage that history is written by the winners. The history of Protestantism in England wasn't very long during the reign of Henry VIII's daughter, and thus the phrasing "dared to continue to adhere to the Protestant faith" sounds very biased. Henry VIII burned plenty of Lutherans in his day; Microsoft's Encarta characterizes Henry VIII's reforms as chiefly political rather than theological.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761562628_2/Reformation.html.

Here's a website with several additional interpretations of the rhyme.

http://www.rooneydesign.com/MaryMary.html

And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,

"Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,"

and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner? -- Plato --The Allegory of the Cave (Exploring Plato's Dialogues)

I've been reading Plato's Allegory of the Cave once again. Plato recognizes that art is powerful and therefore dangerous, and that it should be strictly controlled in order to serve the state. While we're linguistically conditioned to think of the arts as "illuminating" and good artists as "bright," Plato sees art as the shadows on the wall -- shadows cast by puppeteers who are stumbling towards an imperfect representation of reality. While this is hardly a laudable way to interpret artists, Dr. Clowney of Rowan University suggests, "Think 'media', 'propaganda', and Entertainment Tonight, rather than 'fine art', and it is easier to gain some sympathy for Plato's views."

As if Plato needed further confirmation, if you glance at Michael Jackson's trial coverage, you'll see plenty of shadows dancing on Plato's cave walls. In a 1992 article in ANQ, Lance Olson calls Jackson "a pale media-packaged Xerox of a Xerox of the Real Thing." He is so multiply mediated, by plastic, make-up, by masks and umbrellas, by the directions he gives to his own personal videographer (who accompanied his triumphant entry to the courthouse where he entered his plea of not guilty) that he almost ceases to exist. While Olson notes that half a billion people apparently watched the premiere of Jackson's "Black or White" video on MTV, a scant 12 years later, outside of Cali-phoney-a, there wasn't exactly a groundswell of support for Jackson. Steve Gutterman reports that "plans to mount a major show of international support for the pop star failed to hit a high note on their first day Friday, as tiny crowds gathered in a handful of European cities" in gatherings timed to coincide with his arraignment.

Art is powerful and dangerous; at this point, the amount of time, effort, and intellectual energy that the world is investing in contemplating the significance of Michael Jackson's latest antics is enough to make a philosopher weep.

At the turn of the century a Maryland Quaker, Lizzie Magie, was trying to develop a game that would illustrate the inequities of capitalism and promote a popular "single tax" movement led by Henry George. A century ago this month she received a patent for The Land lord's Game; the illustration in the US Patent Gazette is eerily similar to Monopoly. | The Landlord's Game became a Quaker pastime; over the years little improvements and local details were added by players. Eventually it became known as Monopoly, and a version that used the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey (still used in the US version of Monopoly) was shown to a man named Charles Darrow in 1931. He sold the rights to Parker Brothers games in 1936. The Quakers' 30-year-old instructive little anti-capitalism game became, in other hands, the opposite. --Tim Dowling --I rolled a two - and got a ghetto stash  (Guardian)

Some background supplied on the history of "Monopoly," as part of the reaction to the export of "Ghettopoly" to Britain.

One of the things on my list of "things I remember from my youth that I wish I could find again" was a science-fiction story in which a group of customs officials (I think) are testing products being imported to Earth. One of the products is a suspicious war toy with little robot soldiers that keep disappearing; but that toy turns out to be a distraction -- the real threat is a board game that teaches children to make business decisions that will result in some offworld faction taking over the economy of the solar system. (The customs officials only glanced at the rules, and didn't notice that you get points for losing your empire.) I found this via Crooked Timber.

"The Clark Bar Association"? That name is sure to draw snickers when crunch time arrives. Clark will face mounds of mockery, which may prove to be the kiss of death for his candidacy and, if he's the nominee, ensure the re-election of the jolly rancher now in the White House. If Clark is smart, he'll make sure that whatever staffer thought of this doesn't see another payday. Such a decision could be a lifesaver for the campaign. --James Taranto --Best of the Web Today (Opinion Journal)

For this nutty little essay mocking Wesley Clark's adoption of the Clark candy bar as a campaign tool, Opinion Journal earns a sweet spot on my tootsie blog roll. (Note to self regarding possible career as comedy writer: keep day job.)

Teens Finding Stupid Ways to DieJerz's Literacy Weblog)

I've come across several recent examples of "It's fun until someone gets killed." It's bad enough when a young person dies, but when the family has to grieve over such stupid reasons... ouch, that hurts. My heart goes out to these families.

Avalanche is a great word. Its onomatopoeia is horrific. The very syllables bring to mind a Frenchman tumbling down a mountainside, until he meets his demise in a crunching vortex of snow and rock and ice: "Ahhhh...vahhh...laaaaaaaa...uNNCHHH!" -- Mike Arnzen --Oddly Chilling Thoughts (The Goreletter)

After some good-natured ribbing about his taste in clothing, General Wesley Clark, the Democratic Presidential candidate, has decided to donate his much-famed argyle sweater to charity. --General Wesley Clark's Argyle Sweater (EBay)

I found myself doing a little superior dance, because I just happen to have a read a blog entry about the history of sweaters on the linguistically fascinating flaschenpost, and I am therefore critically equipped to understand the cultural significance of Wesley Clark's Sweater and its presence on E-bay.

I didn't realize that what the English call a "jumper" is the same thing I call a "sweater". To me, a jumper is a long sleeveless dress worn over a shirt; the jumper is typically of a rugged material like denim, and is thus suitable as a play outfit for little girls.

Stealthy? 1995? Please. 100% of teenagers play games today (those who don't are a rounding error)--but I doubt the percentage in, say, 1990, during the SNES/Genesis era, was all that different. And the game industry first made the claim that it was bigger than the movies in 1980 or 81, if I remember correctly--albeit revenues then were largely from the arcade cash-drop, not software sales. The point being that games have been hugely important to our culture--particularly youth culture--for two decades or more. If you want to find the point at which sea-change began, you sure don't start with 1995. You can make an argument for 1972 (when both Bushnell's Pong and Ralph Baer's Magnavox Odyssey appeared); 1962 (Steve Rusell's Space War); 1958 (Willy Higginbotham's Tennis for Two, and also Charles Roberts's Tactics); 1913 (H.G. Wells's Little Wars); 1861 (Milton Bradley's The Checkered Game of Life); or 1780 (The King's Game, by Helwig, Master of Pages to the Duke of Brunswick). 1972 is the traditional date, although I'd argue that you can't understand the digital games revolution without understanding the wargaming, miniature, and kriegspiel traditions that predate it--not to mention classic arcade amusements, of course. --Grek Costikyan --The Times on Games (Games * Design * Art * Culture)

When she got home she found her inbox stuffed with new messages, many of which were junk mail. One message was titled "BBC World service proposal," but Onwueme said she just skipped over it. | The BBC sent a second e-mail, which she also did not take the time to read because it had the same vague title. --Susan MacLaughlin --Professor lands international radio deal (UWEC Spectator)

Tess Onwueme, a playwright from Nigeria, is a former colleague of mine from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. The Beeb was trying to ask her if they could broadcast a radio performance of her play, Shakara, The Dancehall Queen.

I always taught one or two of her plays whenever I had a drama class. I would tell the students that we would have a guest lecturer who "is an expert in the plays of Tess Onwueme." When Tess walked in the door, often wearing a bright purple or red turban, I'd tell them who she was. The students always got a kick out of her visits.

She also makes a great plantain dish, the recipe for which my wife has bugged me a few times to request from her.

A student at McGill University has won the right to have his assignments marked without first submitting them to an American, anti-plagiarism website.

--McGill student wins fight over anti-cheating website  (CBC)

As a former resident of Canada, I couldn't repress a smirk at the CBC's need to identify the website as "American" in the lead. (The site is TurnitIn.com.)

The very premise of an online game is that it is uncontrollable - indeed, even the banned players have found ways to sneak back in various disguises. | That, in turn, presents a thorny set of philosophical problems. How do you seek to curb the baser instincts of a community of autonomous players? Is repression the answer? Or do you have to give people incentives to behave better all by themselves? --Andrew Gumbel --Blood on the Virtual Carpet (Independent)

I filed this under "Journalism" because it features a virtual newspaper reporting on the unsavory activities of the virtual residents of a in The Sims.

Approximately twenty-five years have passed since the production of the first widely-distributed computer games; but the medium still appears malleable and novel, and its criticism remains a new and open field. Much work remains to be done, and many questions have not been asked. What vocabulary will be necessary for a literate engagement with the media of interactive entertainment? What, if any, are the distinctive formal and cultural characteristics of games as distinct from other media? What are, and will be, the standards for critical judgment and interpretation of games? --Form, Culture, and Video Game Criticism | Princeton, March 6, 2004KairosNews/UPenn CFP)

Assuming the SHU powers that be grant my funding request, I'll be attending this conference to present a paper on the history of Will Crowther's original version of what became known as "Colossal Cave Adventure." Crowther's version is presumed to be lost, but I've collected what I can about the version of the game that was found, modified, and re-released by Don Woods.

The paper is part of an article commissioned for the history section of the IF Theorybook, as editor-in-chief Emily Short nicknames it in her e-mails. Maybe Interactive Fiction: History, Craft, and Theory would be a more accurate title. But that would involve a horrid academic colon.

The conference organizes say they don't have a web presence, so I'm just blogging the announcement in KairosNews that prompted me to send in my proposal. The conference is being held by the English Department at Princeton.

You find yourself in yon dungeon. Back yonder there is a FLASK. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.

What wouldst thou deau?
>_ --Strong Bad: Video Games (Homestarrunner.com)

Bobby actually e-mailed me this suggestion a few days ago, and I saw it in a comment on MGK, and on the rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup, but this was the first week of classes, and I only had the chance to view it just now. At the end, you can actually play the different spoof games.

If you aren't familiar with the Strong Bad character, here's another of my favorites: "A Well Thought-Out English Paper"

Crucially, Mr Medjahdi said he could see no photographers anyway near the car, despite initial police suspicions that they might have distracted the driver. "I got a complete picture from my side and rear-view mirrors of what was happening beside me. There was no other vehicle in my field of vision. I saw no cars with the Mercedes, no photographers on motorbikes around the car. There wa