FWFL

Dreaming a Course or Two

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Dear Readers,

I follow up my teaching philosophy with something even more near and dear to my heart--my imaginary course descriptions. I really love the process of developing a course, creating its narrative and formal patterns. I have come up already with 5 different course ideas in my field. Below are the two that I submitted for my pedagogy course.

The first is a full-year survey course (1st or 2nd year) for what in our department is paper one of the comprehensive exam (basically up to 1700). My hope here was to give a general introduction to the broader field, but also giving it a frame or thesis to help focus discussions. My model for this was Jeffrey Cohen's Myths of Britain course at GW. I have also organized the papers so that they are somewhat progressive. The students will write a lot and should get tons of feedback. I end with Beowulf in hopes of at least mentioning Anglo-Saxon history since there is not enough time to take it on fully.

The second course is a 4th year, half-year seminar and is basically my dissertation. I love it so much. I want this course is to stretch the definition of what we might consider the literary, showing that even devotional texts are literary. Besides, we get to read Julian of Norwich (and I love her so)! I would hope it would run much like two seminars I had in my fourth year of undergrad - the undergraduate book history course at the Folger taught by Sarah Werner and a English honors seminar on time taught by Jonathan Gil Harris. Both gave us tons of reading and really started to model something closer to a graduate seminar.

Clearly, GW has influenced my pedagogy more than I had assumed!

Obviously, these are imaginary courses, developed for an ideal world. But still, your feedback is always wanted and appreciated. Do they seem feasible? Any huge, glaring faults? Could I actually get a department to let me teach these?

Your Humblest Author.

______________________________________________________________________

Writing England: Nationalism and English Literature from The Canterbury Tales to Paradise Lost

In his The Regiment of Princes, Thomas Hoccleve calls Chaucer the “first finder of our fair language.” Hoccleve’s Chaucer is not just a good poet, but rather the source of English—an English that represents a language, a literature, and a nation. Hoccleve's reading of Chaucer refigures him as the father of English literature, an image that still is often maintained today. In this course, we will explore the establishment of an English literary canon from the late 14^th-century to through the English Restoration. We will focus our attention on how these three Englishes - the language, the literature, and the nation – function together in the texts we read. Particularly, we want to explore the role of literature in the development of an English nationalism.

The first half of the course will focus on the late medieval. We will look at Chaucer, Gower, and Langland and more specifically their own articulations of Englishness. We will follow this up with Lydgate and Hoccleve, who are Chaucer’s first literary descendents, asking how they formed a canon out of those who came before. Midway through the course, we will turn to the early modern period. Here we will see Wyatt, Sidney, and Spenser struggling with what they see as a very unfamiliar past. Chaucer becomes, for them, a literary father that makes them uncomfortable. Finally, we look at the later 16^th-century through the 17th. These authors, particularly Milton, will help us see what it means to deal with an extensive literary canon to help develop a nation. We will end the course with Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, hoping to open up these concerns of nationalism in a more contemporary context.

What is a nation? How is a literary tradition built and understood? These are just a few of the questions we will pursue in the course.

Students should gain from this course:

1. A familiarity with the "big hits" of medieval and early modern English literature through the Restoration

2. Improved writing skills through the drafting and workshopping of three majors papers

3. A vocabulary to discuss issues of nationalism and nation formation in medieval and early modern England.

Major Texts: Beowulf; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; Gower, Confessio Amantis; Langland, Piers Plowman; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Book Of John Mandeville; Book of Margery Kempe; Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes; Lydgate; Siege of Thebes; Wyatt, Selections; Sidney, Arcadia; Spenser, Faerie Queene, Book 1 and Ruines of Time; Shakespeare, Henry V; Donne, The Anniversaries; Milton, Paradise Lost; Marvell, Selections

Tutorial Participation – 20%

Paper 1 (5-7 pages) – 15 %

Paper 2 (8-10 pages) – 20%

Paper 3 (10-12 pages) – 25%

Final Exam – 20%

___________________________________________________________________________

On Loving God: English Vernacular Theology in the Late-Medieval Period

Did the English love God differently? Perhaps this seems an absurd question, considering the universal nature of the divine. However, in the late-medieval period, English writers started to imagine a relationship with God that was no longer written in the Latin of the Church, but rather in English. Looking at devotional and secular literary texts from this period, we will explore this process of making God English. While our approach will include concerns of nationalism and politics, we will focus primarily on the increase of texts written in English during this period. We will ask: is the rise of a uniquely English literary canon linked to a change in the way English people began to imagine their relationships with the divine?

We will explore conduct books for lay believers, such as The Ancrene Wisse, as well as texts written for clergy and other members of the Church, typified in Richard Rolle and Walter Hilton. Then we will move to texts written by the laity, such as Julian of Norwich’s account of her mystical experience with Christ. We will end the course with more secular or explicitly literary texts, such as Piers Plowman, to try to understand how this growing output of devotional texts influenced more secular works. We will end the course looking towards the early modern period and the Reformation. Here, Thomas More will be our guide, helping us discuss how the rise of an English devotion in the late-medieval period helps structure the Reformation.

Major Texts: Augustine, The Confessions; Ancrene Wisse; Richard Rolle, English Works; Walter Hilton, Scale of Perfection; Julian of Norwich, Revelation of Divine Love; Pearl; Cloud of Unknowing; Langland, Piers Plowman; Mankind; Croxton Play of the Sacrament; Assembly of the Gods; Thomas More, The Sadness of Christ

Informed Participation and Short Responses - 25%

Presentation – 25 %

Research Proposal and Bibliography - 10%

Research Paper (20-25 pgs) – 40%

Teaching: A Philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:44:00 +0000

Dear readers,

Sorry for the hiatus. I have no real excuse. But I am back. This term I am taking our department's pedagogy course. I wanted to share some of my work as teaching is really important to me. I have not done much of it, sadly. I got my first tutorials this year, and they have been a bit of a whirlwind. I love every minute of it, but I am also barely swimming sometimes. So when it came to our first assignment for pedagogy I had a hard time. We were asked to writing a teaching philosophy, and it was not as simple as I thought it would be.

I have thought about teaching for years, but I have only tried to articulate it in aphorisms and horrific metaphors. Of course, I want my students to engage critically. I want literature to mean something. But when trying to state exactly what I meant by that I found I had no words. I did some digging (also part of the assignment) to find other teaching philosophies. I particularly liked this one from David Clark at McMaster. But finally I went to In The Middle (I should have just went there first), and Mary Kate Hurley proposed an interesting idea. She tried to imagine a medieval model for her pedagogy. So I used her proposal to get my philosophy started. I am still not happy with it, but I think it is a great start. Enough preamble, I leave the rest for you to decide.

Your humble author.

____________________________________________

O you possessed of sturdy intellects,

observe the teaching that is hidden here

beneath the veil of verses so obscure

- Dante, Inferno IX.61-3 (trans. Mandelbaum)

Reading is hard. Dante leads himself through the whole divine cosmos just to teach this simple lesson. The obscurity of Dante's allegory, even his choice of allegory itself, points to a very interesting pedagogical strategy - reading. He does not tell his readers what to think, rather he asks them to think for themselves. He demands that his students critically engage with the text and, in doing so, interpret it. As a teacher, I always strive to do the same. My goal in every class is to teach my students to read in this Dantean sense. I want them to explore the figurative terrain of the text and not just vaguely grasp its topology, but rather dig underneath. I want them to explore, to seek a fuller, more intimate knowledge of the literary. I may be a teacher of literature, but first, I was a student of literature. As such, I strive in my classroom to give my students access to the same teachers that taught me ---Spenser, Donne, Julian of Norwich, Chaucer, and, of course, Dante.

I often tell my students there are two approaches to reading literature: the Oprah's Book Club model and the literary scholar model. Of course, there are a multitude of ways to read, but this over simplification helps to get across a point. For Oprah and her book club, reading is something we do in our spare time. It is a hobby. In this type of reading, the text is a means towards our own ends, a kind of literary therapy. I tell my students that this can be a very fun way to read; I indulge in it myself all the time. But for literary scholars, the texts must take the lead. They all become our own individual Dante's helping us through their terrain. I spend much time on the formal aspects of the text, showing my students how the text structures its concerns. I like to begin my courses with an extensive model of close reading. I will pick two or three lines of poetry and show students how much we can get out of those lines. I continue to model this process throughout the course.

Modelling, however, is never enough. I also have my students fumble through the text themselves. My students are asked to take risks, to trip, and to even fall down in their readings of text. To read in this way, students must feel that they can make mistakes. I am a very demanding teacher, and I recognize how this could stifle this learning process. Students will not want to take risks if they believe that I will punish them if their final product is not successful. To assuage this, I emphasize the importance of the process over the product. For instance, I always give my students the option to send me drafts in advance of a deadline. I have them meet me in office hours to go over the drafts, where I can help them work out the problems of their papers before they are marked. This allows them to take risks, but without major consequences. I also give students examples from my own undergraduate and graduate papers. I ask them to critique and edit these samples. They quickly learn that while I expect the best from myself and from them, I also know that we all fail at perfection. Showing my students my own fallibility allows them to be more comfortable with their own. Reading is hard, and it is important that my students know that even I am trying to master it (and will continue to for the rest of my career).

I want to treat my students as intellectual peers, sharing in the classroom experience. I will often ask them questions that I do not know the answer to (and I will let them know this as I am asking). Perhaps this points to the more optimistic side of my teaching. I believe that all my students are capable of being A students, even if in reality, they will not be. This does not mean that I teach all my students in the same way. Everyone learns slightly differently, and as such, I must tailor my approach to give each the potential of being their best. In the classroom, I will give students many options for engaging---through presentations, group work, written responses, and discussion. I bring into the classroom visual aids and often read poetry aloud. I also offer my students as much one-on-one time as the course permits. I encourage students to use my office hours, to send me questions, and to run essay drafts by me. I never want my students to think I am not available just because we are not in the classroom. I hope most my students will learn more outside of the class from reading the texts than I could ever give them. I just want to equip them with the right tools to get the most out of their explorations.

More importantly, I want them to be changed through their explorations. Here Dante and I agree and disagree. We both think texts have formative powers. He is a bit more prescriptive that his texts should effect certain types of individuals. I, on the other hand, would never to want to decide how my students change. I just believe that an engaged encounter with literature is never one way: we are redefined as we interpret. Derek Attridge articulates this in his The Singularity of Literature: "In the reading of the writing that is literature, one might say, meaning is simultaneously formed and performed. The words mean, and at the same time they show us what it is to mean.”[1] As Attridge starts to outline here, literature, if we are reading properly, is a transformative experience; I want to give my students the critical tools to have this experience. Specifically, I want literature to help them gain a sense of context and meaning for their many identities and thoughts that they have been developing throughout their lives. When I have to conceptualize who I am, such as what kind of teacher I am, I have a wealth of texts and authors who I can consult, who have helped to give my thoughts definition. My goal in the classroom is to give my students the tools to read texts in this way. I want them to ask those big, impossible questions, like who am I, and have Dante to guide them through the unending process of finding an answer.

[1] Attridge, Derek. The Singularity of Literature. New York: Routledge, 2004. 109.

Housekeeping: The Post-Comps Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:51:00 +0000

Dear Gentlest Readers:

My comprehensive exams are over. I have my life back. Well, as much as one has a life in grad school.
Overall, I found the experience quite amazing. I read many texts that I had been avoiding, only to learn I love them (especially Pride and Prejudice). I also decided to shift my research to the 14th and 15th centuries (blame Julian of Norwich - she is just so awesome). So all in all, it was a successful summer. The exams themselves felt overly stressful, and, honestly, an annoying exercise. I am sure in a few months (if I passed) I will feel differently, but right now, the last month or so was frighteningly painful in a way the rest of the summer wasn't. I spent every hour worrying about an exam that seems arbitrary at best. Well, it's over and I can say I did it. We should have gotten t-shirts.

So looking forward. I am currently in Donship training. Once again, I will be living in residence helping the undergrads not make bad life choices. Should be fun. Actually, I am an academic don, which means I am an in-house English TA. Oh and I got a tutorial this year for my TA assignment. So I will actually teach a class every Friday! And the course: The Literary Tradition. Yes, you read it right, readers-- ALL THE BOOKS. I am teaching them all (n.b.: Writer may be exaggerating). Between the Donship and my tutorial this year, I will get tons of teaching experience. So excited. It's honestly why I am here, so I look forward to it. I love research, but I love working with students more.

Tons of research these next few months. I am working on putting together my committee (I know all the members. I just haven't asked them. *crosses fingers*). Also, I have to write up a proposal for my dissertation, which will basically involve reading tons of Chaucer and Augustine. My life could certainly be worse. Oh and I am working on a proposal for the big medievalist conference at Kalamazoo! Hopefully I will post a few thoughts here as I work on these projects.

Finally, I get to do some housekeeping that I have been putting off like sorting files I have been avoiding ALL SUMMER (and doing laundry, which I haven't been avoiding all summer). It feels great to be a human being again.

-Your humble author.

Why I am unabashedly in love with Pope

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Fri, 27 May 2011 13:55:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers,

Many hate Pope. They find him splenetic and painful, but I love him. I always have.
I just reread Rape of the Lock. The epic conventions are glorious. But, of course, perhaps that really is why I love him. Pope knows the genres he works in really well; he knows them so well he can satirize them with a skill that John Stewart could only envy. Yes, Rape of the Lock is not Paradise Lost, but it is a wonderful read. It is hard to excerpt just a bit of the poem. But here is one of my favourite parts:

While through the press enraged Thalestris flies,
And scatters deaths around from both her eyes,
A beau and witling perished in the throng,
One died in metaphor, and one in song.
'O cruel nymph! a living death I bear,'
Cried Dapperwit, and sunk beside his chair.
A mournful glace Sir Fopling upwards cast,
'Those eyes are made so killing' -- was his last.
V.57-64

Thalestris, Pope's Camilla, kills with her eyes, and, her victims die poetically in metaphor or song. This is a poet's epic about epics. No more to say today. Just a quick academic gushing over a poetic love outside my normal period of study.

Your Humblest Author.

Reading all the books: A Comprehensive Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Fri, 13 May 2011 21:03:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers:

My first year of my PhD wrapped up swimmingly. I took courses in topics ranging from Marxist ideology critique to medieval nationhood. I learned that medieval maps tended to face east because that's where Paradise is and that Derrida gets ambivalent when his cat sees him naked. I have written on Donne, Kant, Zizek, Lacan, Althusser, Spenser, Augustine, Higden, Trevisa, Chaucer, Jameson, and John Speed. I have many good ideas for my dissertation. But most of all, I had a blast.

I am sorry that I did not bring you along for the ride. I was overwhelmed and decided that blogging was the last thing I needed. Now, though, I start the next phase of my program: The Comprehensive Exams. I will be reading a fairly extensive list of some of the top hits in English Lit, and I have decided to pick up blogging again. I can't promise you genius, but maybe I can introduce you to some awesome works. So for the next 4 months, enjoy the ride; it will be a crazy one.

Your Humblest Author.

Relaunching and Renovating

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:14:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers,

As you may have noticed, I have not posted since April. I needed a break. I have been working way too many hours, and my mind has been a bit of mush While the work hours will not let up for sometime, I have decided to restart my posting, slowly at first. I should be managing a post every Friday for you all out there.

Once we are back in full swing, the content should be fairly similar, but I am hoping for a bit more regularity. Book reviews once a month, movie or music reviews weekly, and, of course, thoughts about various academic and politic topics as they come to me. (Oh and the random post about cooking or knitting). I also enjoyed having guest bloggers and I hope to have more in the future.

You will also notice that we are at a new location and with a new look. It seemed like it was time to give everything an overhaul.

Hope you enjoy the programming!

-Your Humble Author

Is that a delicious crumb or are you just happy to see me?

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:05:00 +0000

23.1

Dear Gentle Reader,

Sorry for the delay in this post. Getting a USB cable for my camera proved more difficult than just going to the local electronics/camera store. Damn you, Kodak, and your special cables.

Additionally, this post is not the promised post of intellectual proportions. Sadly, Mr. Kelly's topic has become a bit unwieldy - he even gave me readings! (I feel like I am back in grad school already). So naturally, I will need an extension. Thank you for understanding in this time of mental strain.

However, I have had another post fermenting for quite some time, so you all get that. As I have ~~hinted~~ boasted many times, I am now baking bread on a regular basis. I wanted to present some of my creations since I got started, as well as an in-depth report of the inner workings of Whoville (my sourdough starter)!

And without further ado, I would like to introduce the world to Whoville.

Whoville working hard on some flour.

This beautiful community of wild yeast is a bit on the shy side and certainly unassuming. But don't under estimate Whoville. Give it a fresh feeding of flour, some water, and nestle it in a warm place, and those yeast produce a wondertastic bread.

Speaking of Whoville, perhaps now is a good time to learn a bit.
Here is that beautiful Scientist/Chef Alton Brown on yeast:

Whoville is so cute in sock puppet form, and is the most delicious baked pet ever. Watch the whole episode if you have time. I love Alton, and his stuff on bread is fairly solid.
Part 1:

Part 2:

Perhaps you want to start your own flour-loving yeast community. Guys, it's so simple. You will need a sanitized glass jar (I use the ones with the wire bail), a cup of flour, and a cup of warm water. You mix the water and flour and leave your jar out in a warmish spot (I just stuck it on the counter). Everyday for a week or two, take out one half cup of the mixture (throw it away), and mix in a fresh half cup of flour and water (This is called feeding). Once you start seeing bubbling and smelling alcohol, your little community has formed. I kept up the daily feeding schedule for a week after the starter got going, until it would nearly double in volume in a day. After you feel the starter is strong, you can stick it in the fridge and feed it once a week (I just use my feeding as a means of starting my bread for the week). Your starter will produce liquid. You can either drain this off or I just tend to mix it back in.

Some notes: When I did this I actually used two cups of flour and water with a one cup feeding. I found that having a full cup of starter left each time I feed it allows it to come back sooner, which is nice, since I tend to dip into my starter more that once a week (to make pancakes, et al). On flour, I use a hard whole wheat for my starter and tend to bake with either a good unbleached all purpose or even better bread flour. In all honesty though, play. Try different flours and recipes. Go nuts. If something fails, you waste about a buck and a little bit of time. For your starter, though, stick with something more neutral, either a white bread flour or a whole wheat. If you are buying flours in bulk, hard flours are what you want. They have a higher gluten content. Soft flours are for pastries, and should certainly be in your pantry but not in your breads.

Some suggested reading:
Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food
Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking
Anything from Peter Reinhart, but especially The Bread Baker's Apprentice
The Fresh Loaf (Tips, lessons, and blogs!)

So now that I have overwhelmed you with breadnerdiness (and hopefully inspired you to attempt some sourdough produced thanks to your own local microfauna), here are some photos of the work Whoville and I have done together:

Multigrain Sandwich bread and Batons. Did you know homemade sourdough makes for delicious PB&Js?

This an experimental rye loaf. I presoaked the flour in my smokest black tea, then mixed in dried orange peel. My friend Christina and I enjoyed this warm with just a spot of butter. Delicious.

Sourdough doesn't come in just bread form. Still working on perfecting my sourdough pancake recipe. These weren't an unwelcome imperfection. I am hungry just thinking about them.

To end this doughy affair, I just wanted to give you guys a simple recipe that I have been following for some delicious loaves.

Simple Sourdough

1c starter
2c water
3-5c unbleached flour (bread best, but AP works)
2Tbs Olive oil (pick something with a strong taste)
2Tbs Sugar
1Tbs Kosher Salt
1/2-2tps yeast*
(*optional, will change flavour of bread, but will help with the rise. I tend not to use it, but you can)

1. Mix stater with 1c water and 1c flour. Allow to set at least 6 hours (I have done up to 24). The longer the sourer.

2. Take this sponge and add rest of water, olive oil, sugar, salt, and 1c flour. Let set 10-30 minutes.

3. Knead dough, incorporating remaining flour. Trust yourself to know if the bread needs more flour. Should be fairly manageable and sticky to the touch. If it is easy to knead but not liquidy, you are probably good. This dough does well with more hydration. Knead until you can window pane the dough (meaning, you tear off a small piece of dough and stretch it to see if you can get it thin enough to allow light to pass through). In all honesty, if you give it a good 18-24 hours of sitting, you won't need to knead it at all. The yeast will align the glutens for you.
(Video on kneading - for pasta, but idea the same):

4. Cover and let rise until double. Time will depend on your starter. Roughly 2-6 hours, but sometimes over 12. I will often mix it up in the morning, give it about 30 minutes then stick it in the fridge till I get home that evening.

5. Fold dough and shape. (Here is where you get to be creative. Batons! Loaves! Batards! Boules! - I tend to alternate between my trusty loaf pan and a ceramic bowl for baking/shaping). Let rest until risen again around double.

6. Score if wanted (1/2-1 deep). Place in cold oven above a pan of water. Heat to 450F. Done in about 40-60 minutes or until hollow when tapped on the bottom.

7. Cool. Slice and enjoy.

That is it, my friends. My first (and perhaps only) sourdough post. Feel free to email me with questions if you decide to embark on your own doughy adventure.

Thanks for your time,
Your humblest Author (and baker)

Blogging Fail

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:41:00 +0000

25.1

[Updated: Week # and lessons learned this week]

Dear Gentle Readers,

I promised you a blog post. I even wrote it nearly 5 days ago.
So you might be asking, why have you not seen it?

Well....It wasn't me.

It really wasn't. The post is all ready, just awaiting pictures in the places where I have dutifully written [Picture Here]. Sadly, my camera decided to lose its USB cable, and apparently it is an unusual one that I have no duplicates of, despite my drawer full of cables. I am on the hunt, and hopeful that by tomorrow we will have pictures and thus a post.

I think perhaps life is telling me this blog is a no go.

Cheers!
Your humble author

P.S. Decided that I should add some valuable content, so here are ten things I have learned this week:

1. The grad school application process is nebulous and confusing at best.
2. Loan companies actually do want to make it impossible for you to pay them (as well as eat once you do).
3. Sometimes you hit an intellectual wall that leaves you questioning not only your mental abilities, but even your right to exist.
4. Finale of Veronica Mars Season 1 - A-freakin-tastic.
5. Knitting is cool, and sometimes subversive. (Oh and making a Pacman hat rocks! Pictures soon?)
6. Serena van der Woodsen is my new girlfriend.
7. You never grow out of your penchant to lose items (including your favourite H&M houndstooth scarf).
8. Food snobbery is calling seared duck breast a quick dinner.
9. Did I mention the grad school application process sucks?
10. No matter who you are public transportation has a personal vendetta, and it collects.

An update of sorts

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:32:00 +0000

27.1
Updated 5:50 AM (Thank you added)

Hello there Gentle Readers,

I do so apologize for the lack of blogging in my life. To be quite honest, I just had nothing to blog about. I did not want to blather on about my boring life, and I was not reading anything highly intellectually stimulating enough to warrant a blog post. Well, now, all that has changed.

This first post is an update of sorts, but will be followed within the next week by an intellectual quandary my good friend Mike posed. For the update, this month is admissions month for me. I am waiting to hear back from those graduate schools. In December and January, I carefully swaddled up my academic life (in 25 pages or less!) and sent it forth to them for weighing and judgment. This month (and perhaps some of next) I will hear back as to if I am worthy of working on a PhD. Considering the job market, it amazes me that one needs to compete for these things any more. So far I have heard from two schools with fairly happy results (I am waiting for all the results and a final decision to be made before posting anything publically).

On a secondary note, I have been up to much these days. Much baking that is. In January break, I began a sourdough starter. I am happy to announce that I am the father of a whole community of delicious bread making yeast (appropriately named Whoville). My starter has the heart of a champ and the rising power of a forklift! So far we have made a half dozen loaves together, and I look forward to many more. [Note: I realize the shear nerdiness of this update. I have come to accept this part of myself, and you should too]. The biggest problem with my starter will be getting it across the border, if I decide to go to grad school in the states. Customs be damned, Whoville will not be left behind.

My additional new hobby is mixing cocktails. Because I don't want to be a burgeoning alcoholic, I do not make a regular habit of this hobby, but nonetheless I am becoming quite the mixologist. I am hoping to start a nice bitters collection and begin making my own gin. I have already developed a taste for Scotch thanks to my times in Oxford. For those interested, I would certainly suggest Kate Hopkins' book, 99 Drams of Whiskey. I received it for Christmas. While I have not had the chance to read it, I have been following her blog for years, and I am certain her work will impress. Currently, I am looking into cocktail guides. Any suggestions?

I am also rereading Derek Attridge's The Singularity of Literature. I am taking much time with this short book, and it is reigniting my passion for literature. He engages with literature in a very formalist manner, understanding that there is, in fact, something we can call the literary. What I love most though is the heavy influence by Derrida and many other French thinkers, who I think pair perfectly with many formalist concerns. I am certain that Attridge will be a crucial founding block of my own process. How can he not be? It is time to return to formalism and more importantly to literature, but doing so will require that we do not ignore how these texts engage with their social environment. As I have argued before, I think that material form becomes the best way of approaching this. The text's engagement with its world not just as idea but as paper and ink is the key to understanding a formalism that does not fully isolate a text from its context. As Derrida continually reminds, the text does not end at the boards. Enough academia for now, but more to come. [Maha: Would love to hear more about how you think we should engage with literature as literary.]

Well, folks, that is it for now. A quick update, with promises of more. Things to look forward to:
- 365 redux (The picasa album has already been made!)
- More formalism
- More old dusty books
- More crusty bread ?!?
- Some comics
- Book sex (promised it nearly a year ago, I eventually have to deliver)

Until then,
Your Humblest Author

P.S. A hearty thank you to Mr. Kelly for the new banner heading this blog!

I have ridden the wave.

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:46:00 +0000

44.1

Dear Constant Readers,

I got my Google Wave invite on Friday. Being the silly boy I am, I quickly hopped online and starting playing.

Overall, my feelings are the average. I am excited for the potential, but for now, bored as no one is on it with me. I am still trying to figure out how to wade through all the extensions. Not being a firefox man has put me at a disadvantage here.

I do have some suggestions that I think would make Wave more popular with its current users. These are more temporary fixes til more people are on wave.

E-mail support. Why can't I send and receive my standard Gmail from Wave. Seems simple and yet would allow me to have tons of hours using the interface.

IM support. Naturally, let me chat on Wave with my AIM, MSN, and GChat friends. That too seems simple enough.

Calendar Support. Collaborative Calendaring has been the motif of GCal forever. Why not give in and integrate all of Google's collaborative products into one clean interface.

In fact, what I am proposing is that Wave becomes in someways Google's answer to the homepage. Your one stop shop for all things Google. I know that this is not the intended purpose. And I think that once more widespread, Wave will be an amazing asset. But for now, take advantage of its simplicity and flexibility. Get people used to logging into it everyday, and then Wave will take off.

Just some thoughts.

Yours,

Your Humble Author.

Living with the Wild Things

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:24:00 +0000

46.1

Dear Gentle Readers,

I went to see Where the Wild Things Are last night. Here are my thoughts.

This film is a wonderful adaptation of one of my favourite children's books. The movie is a dark, impressive reflection on loneliness. Max's inner struggles and personal development is skillfully reflected in the emotional roller coaster that is the land of the Wild Things. Carol's rage and impetuousness expresses the need to live in a incoherent, illogical moment, to just break things because that is the only way to deal with unhappiness. While the natural link is to see a reflection between Max's own broken home and the brokenness of the Wild Things' family, I think that this film's strength comes in its ability to function on a more visceral level. We feel with this film, not just think. If you don't cry in the last moments, perhaps you aren't human. Eggers and Jonze write a masterful screenplay, modernizing this text for a more mature audience, the audience that grew up reading and dancing with the Wild Things.

On a more technical level, the casting for the film was superb. Max Records plays an adorable, monstrous young boy, living out his dreams. Lauren Ambrose is a touching KW, especially in her ability to humanize what are perhaps the most disturbing lines of the book ("I'll eat you up I love you so"). The costuming takes Maurice Sendak's creation to a real and yet even more fantastical level. The creatures are given more depth and life, a vibrancy only the big screen can yield.

All in all, a great film that gathers its strength not just from its technical and artistic skill, but from its masterful ability to express the inexpressibility of the both the ups and downs of relationships, the uncontrollable range of emotions involved in just trying to be loved.

Your Humblest Author

Review: Kavalier & Clay - A Real American Novel

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:52:00 +0000

47.1

Dear Gentle Readers,

I have, for quite some time, been reading Michael Chabon's Kavalier & Clay. While I still have 200 pages left of the gigantic 650 page novel, I figured it was time to share my thoughts on what has been hailed over and over as a piece of prose genius.

To begin, I should admit that at this point in the novel I am a bit stuck. The last hundred pages have been slow going, and I have lost all momentum. In fact, this is my major critique of Chabon's novel - it is just too long. I was with him for the first 300 pages, as in I read that chunk in a week. I absolutely adored it. As you all know, I recently discovered the modern American cultural icon that is the comic. Chabon does a crack job at capturing the spirit, not just of the burgeoning comic industry in the 30s and 40s, but also of the contemporary feel of the comic world. Go out and read Neil Gaiman's introduction to 1602, there you will find the same excitement and wonder that we find in the minds of Sammy Clay and Joseph Kavalier. Chabon's skill expresses the need for a hero in modern society, one reflected in Joseph's own personal struggle with the Nazi's. So on that front I think Chabon was spot on.

But then something failed for me. I was with the novel up until Kavalier and Clay get everything they want. They are rich, writing comics, and the novel seems to have ended. I realize there is much more - and I already have read far enough to know this dream state is short-lived. But there is certainly a period for about eighty pages where it seems the story has ended but Chabon has just decided not to leave his keyboard. I am happy to see that the story is gaining something, but perhaps this could have been saved for another novel.

So you might ask, readers, why did I keep reading? Well besides my own stubbornness, Chabon is a skilled writer. His ability to capture the range of human expectations and emotions moment to moment; his ability to bring a scene to life - no matter how plot thirsty - kept me going. For instance, in the long sample below, get a feel for how selectively he describes Rosa's emotional roller coaster, and Joseph's response is equally well crafted.

To give a bit of background (for those who have not read the novel), Joseph and Rosa have been dating for sometime, and Joseph has leased a new apartment in preparation for the arrival of his younger brother, who is escaping Nazi Germany. While viewing the apartment, Rosa has just given Joseph a painting, in which she holds the key to his heart.

--------------
Chabon writes:

"That's funny, " [Joseph] said. He reached into his trousers pocket. "This is what I have for you." He held out a fist to her, knuckles up. She turned the hand over and pried the fingers apart. On the palm of his hand lay a brass key. "I'm going to need help to do this," he said. "I hope with all my heart, Rosa, that you will want to help me."

"And what is this the key to?" she said, her voice sharper than she wanted it to be, knowing perfectly well that it was the key to this apartment, and that Joe was now asking her for the very thing she had been on the verge of asking for herself - that she be allowed to act as a mother, or at least a big sister, to Thomas Kavalier. She was disappointed in the same measure that she had been expecting a ring, and thrilled to the degree that she was horrified by her desire for one.

"Like in the painting," he said, in a kidding way, as if he could see she was upset, and was trying to figure out what tone to adopt with her. "The key to my heart."

She took the key and held it in her hand. It was warm from his pocket. "Thank you," she said. She was crying, bitterly and happily, ashamed of herself, thrilled to be able to really do something for him.

"I'm sorry," Joe said, taking the handkerchief from his jacket pocket. "I wanted you to have the key, because...but I did the wrong thing." He gestured toward the painting. "I forgot to say I love it. Rosa, I love it! It's incredible! It's a whole new thing for you."

She laughed, taking the hankie from him, and dabbed at her eyes. "No, Joe, it's not that," she said, though in fact that painting did represent a new direction for Rosa's work. It had been years since she had attempted to draw from her imagination. Her talent for capture a likeness, a contour, her innate sense of shadow and weight, had biased her toward life drawing early on. Though she had worked partly from a photograph this time, the details of Joe's body and face were filled in from memory, a process she had found challenging and satisfying. You had to know your lover very well - to have spent a lot of time looking at him and touching him - to be able to paint his picture when he was not around. The inevitable mistakes and exaggerations she had made struck her now as proofs, artifacts, of the mysterious intercourse of memory and love. "No, Joe. Thank you for the key. I want it very much." (588-9)

------------

Chabon's skills at capturing Rosa's emotions, her inability to contain or even expect her own desires. I love that she is "horrified" by her desire to have Joe propose to her. This is in many ways the true nature of love and its expressions, uncontrolled, embarrassing, uncertain, and most importantly unpredicatable. But in this scene, Chabon does even more than perfectly capture Rosa's emotional state. He fuses her artistic experience and knowledge into this emotion. Her love is not just expressed in her desires but through her development as an artist. A well written scene.

I have much more to say, but this post already grows long, and I just wanted to write up a few thoughts, so I will end with a quick two line review.

Kavalier & Clay is a whirlwind of strength. The novel captures an America that both was and in many ways still is, further humanized and personalized through Chabon's deft linguistic skill. While the plot may drag and the length can be overwhelming, the novel is a definite must read for anyone who wants to know what a truly American text is.

Good day,
Your Humble Author

Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. New York: Picador, 2000.

the Poets pen turnes them to shapes, | And giues to aire nothing, a locall habitation, | And a name.

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:09:00 +0000

48.1

Dearest Gentle Readers,

Just a short update (look forward to Spenser tomorrow!).

Found a new living place. This livable. Pictures once painted.
Any suggestions for colour scheme?

Your Humble Author

To al, that in the wilde deepe wandering arre

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:37:00 +0000

49.1

Gentlest Readers,

Your author returns. After a few false starts, even some embarrassing admissions, I have picked up the pen (or the keyboard), and shall stay strong. For now, I have a purpose, a goal, and more important a topic! This blog has, in its past, been a mesh of messy ideas and random youtube videos. That, dear readers, will not change, but this mesh will have order and direction. More important, they will have purpose!

What is this magical purpose, you ask. My sanity.

I am not starting school this Fall, and the effects of this gaping intellectual hole have already been dire. I feel adrift, lost in unfinished thoughts and crackpot ideas. My Middle English dulls, my Latin has gone on Walkabout, and my German has forgotten its own rigid sentence structure. Although my proficiency in all things Marvel or DC comics has exponentially grown (another one of those embarrassing confessions). So I want to try to moor myself, using this space. Will you help me?

I need you all to comment, give me feedback on my thoughts. I am missing out on conversations from class so I would love it if you guys take on this role. Any and all thoughts are helpful - especially from you biostats people out there or lurking family members or former German teachers.

My topics will range from pop culture (Lady Gaga is the new Madonna) to Contemporary fiction (Kavalier & Clay: beautiful, masterful prose, but too long) to my grad school applications (The GRE is stupid, and I refuse to use their vocabulary words). No matter what the blogging, though, the topic will be an important means of getting me to one goal: the second week of September 2010. By then, I will have begun some form of graduate program, and thus all will be right with the world. With this goal in mind, my blog posts will help to countdown to that week. That number at the beginning of this post marks how many weeks I have left and what number post this is for the week (so in this case; 49 weeks left, 1st post of the week).

Looking forward to our conversations.

Your Humble Author.

P.S. The title quote is from The Faerie Queene and is the leading quote for my thesis purposal.

IN which he nerds out

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:06:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers,

I have finally began a stable 40 hour a week job...so soon enough I shall be able to restart my blogging life. For now though let me tell you about my comic obsession.

Yesterday, I went to Fanexpo - Toronto's version of nerd city. It was a bit overwhelming, smelly, and special. But after settling in, I began to feel my inner nerd cry out, and before I knew it, my arms were laden with an obscene amount of comics. How obscene...well I won't tell you how much I spent, but let me just list my purchases.

8 back issues of Uncanny X-men
Batman Dark Victory
Marvel 1602
Blankets
Ultimate X-men Book 2
Earth X
Batman Hush
All Star Superman vol 1&2
Swamp Thing Book 1
All of Sandman (less 5)
Sandman Endless Nights
Arkham Asylum
and tons of freebees.

It was ridiculous.

Your Humble Author

Time for an update

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:38:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers,

I do so apologize that it has been so long since my last update. I have been working like a mad man. I had two jobs for awhile there, averaging about 60 hours of work a week. It has been stressful and busy, and I have had little time to sleep.

But things are looking up, I have found an overnight position at a local college working as the front desk receptionist for the residence hall. It is something I have done before and am quite comfortable and happy in the position. Plus I get benefits and my days free!

I am also potentially picking up a 4 week contract position working for the film festival here. That will be pretty damn sweet, although it will be hellish (would be working a total of 80hrs a week). But since I am now pretty much permanently relocating to Toronto, it feels good to have work.

Besides work, I have been dating someone for about 6 months. He is totally amazing and has made the past few difficult months exponentially better. Because of him, I am actually getting to know this city a bit. During school, I was just too busy and did not really know anyone well enough to explore the city, which is one of the reasons I wanted to stay. Since May, I have seen most major neighbourhoods in this city and tons of fine films. I hope to explore more once I have a bit more cash.

Well I am at work, and I can't say this was particularly my best weekend in Toronto, so I shall end for now. But I promise many many more updates, much more frequently.

Cheers!
Your humble author

Flicker-lit

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:22:00 +0000

So deeper into it, crowd-swept, strap-hanging,

My lofted arm a-swivel like a flail,

My father's glazed face in my own waning

And craning...

Again the growl

Of shutting doors, the jolt and one-off treble

Of iron on iron, then a long centrifugal

Haulage of speed through every dragging socket.

And so by night and day to be transported

Through galleried earth with them, the only relict

Of all that I belonged to, hurtled forward,

Reflecting in a window mirror-backed

By blasted weeping rock-walls.

Flicker-lit.

-Seamus Heaney, "District and Circle," ll. 57-68. ¹

Dear gentle readers,

I think it is time to return this blog to its roots. Back to literature. I may not be in grad school at the moment, but I am still reading, and it feels good once more. So far since my last paper I have read the following:

Wasted Vigil (Nadeem Aslam)

My Revolutions (Hari Kunzru)

Netherland (Joseph O'Neill) (See Zadie Smith's beautiful review here)

Monsters of Templeton (Lauren Groff)

Ultimate X-men - Volumes 1 and 2 (writer: Mark Miller, artist: Adam Kubert)

Ultimate Spider-man - Volumes 1 and 2 (writer: Brian Michael Bendis, artist: Mark Bagley)

Batman: The Dark Night Returns (writer and artist: Frank Miller)

A fine list in about 6 weeks, and I also reread Heaney's District and Circle. For those of you who have known me for any time, we have probably chatted about my love for Heaney, young and old. He is a great poet and has a wonderful ear for language. So I started my blog post off with a snippet of perhaps my favourite poem of his. "District and Circle" is a tribute to the myths of the underworld. Heaney knows his classics well, and his reimagining of this journey as a subway trip is phenomenal (note: I will probably not make any huge literary claims or arguments in this post. Just fyi). His ending is awe-inspiring. That last "flicker-lit" hangs, in typical Heaney fashion, echoing as we hurtle towards oblivion. The play of both dystopic and hopeful imagery I think really situates this poem in the modern era. We have to deal with a broken world, a messy, dirty planet, but even among the ruins there is beauty.

I want to include one more selection of another poem in the same collection (District and Circle is all I have in Toronto). I love this whole poem because it is perhaps Heaney at his best aurally. The only note I have written above this is "Must read aloud" (yes I still write notes even when not reading for class). Here is the beginning:

Into your virtual city I'll have passed

Unregistered by scans, screens, hidden eyes,

Lapping myself in time, an absorbed face

Coming and going, neither god nor ghost,

Not at odds or at one, but simply lost

To you and yours, out under seeding grass

And trickles of kesh water, sphagnum moss,

Dead bracken on the spreadfield, red as rust.

I reawoke to revel in the spirit

They strengthened when they chose to put me down

For their own good. And to a sixth-sensed threat:

Panicked snipe offshooting into twilight,

Then going awry, larks quietening in the sun,

Clear alteration in the bog-pooled rain.

-Heaney, "The Tollund Man in Springtime," ll. 1-14. ²

There is tons I could say about this whole poem. It is another one of Heaney's Tollund Man poems, and yet there is certainly a tellingness to its being recent. I love this poem because it really exemplifies how he has changed as a poet. However, I think that it is most successful because of its sound. Read it aloud! In fact, buy the book here and read the whole thing aloud. Well worth the $12 or so bucks.

This particular part of the poem stands out for me because of the liminality between reality and virtual, between bodies and ideas. The idea of the speaker entering the world unnoticed and yet real, felt but ghost like, is spot on. "Lapping myself in time" is a crucial moment. The Tollund man is out of time, of this moment and not. Hamlet's famous time is out of joint, which for me is becoming more and more of an interesting turn of phrase. How can we understand the undead or even just the dead revisited as temporal objects. Is the Tolland Man in time, of time, out of time? These are question of bodies and people and ideas that I think are critical to how we approach literature. Ok, ok, I will stop with my literary babble before I become totally incoherent.

I might try to write up a quick review for each of the books I have read thus far. Just a few lines each, nothing big - mainly just reactions. Even if I don't, I will start posting more regularly about what I am currently reading. Starting tomorrow: Kavalier & Clay (Michael Chabon) and Sandman (writer: Neil Gaiman, artists: Mike Dringenberg, Todd Klein, Robbie Busch, and Dave McKean). After that the potentials are American Pastoral (Philip Roth), Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie), What I Talk about When I Talk about Running (Haruki Murakami), Maus (Art Spiegelman), and Good Omens (Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman). Anyone want to weigh in on which of those comes next? I am rereading Spenser come August, so no time to finish all those before summer's end.

-Your Humble Author

___________________________________

1. Heaney, Seamus. District and Circle. London: Faber and Faber, 2006. 17-19. <<

2. ibid. 55-7. <<

What about the queers?

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers,

Toronto has recently started its Pride celebrations. Personally, I have a somewhat mixed feeling about the function of Pride. Often, it seems to just be a celebration of sex, reducing an interesting and diverse community to what happens in the bedroom. Sadly, this is the problem of most LGBT politics - ultimately the queer rights movement is about sex.

Ok, ok, readers. I know too simple, too reductive. If queer theory has taught us anything, it is the the interesting thing about the LGBT community and its push for rights is that it has served to question many of the established institutions of society. LGBT rights not only questioned bigoted hetronormative strictures, it even served to undermine some of the limitations created through other rights movements such as the Feminist and African American. Specifically, Pride can be and at some points is a moment of communal unity in opposition to majority forces that try to marginalize. Pride can be a carnivalesque, topsy-turvy revelry. Sadly, often when Pride is not about fucking, it seems that it becomes a problematic push for tolerance. Tolerance, my dear friends, is not enough.

So what is the point of my post? Well, to be honest, readers, I am not certain, but I think I want to consider the state queer politics - its impact, its limits, and ultimately where to move forward.

I want to be clear about my terminology a bit. The problem is that in queer politics many different groups are represented and, disappointingly enough, not equally. For instance, queers of colour and trangendered individuals often are ignored in order to put forward the gender-stable, white, gay male face for the political movement. So getting back to terms, the word queer is a huge umbrella term that is purposefully inclusive, but the key is to remember that inclusively also tends to smooth out differences, flatten out the plane. Having this in mind, I will try my best to be careful with how I am using these terms. Often, I feel that queer has lost any purpose - many a times have I sat in a class and heard someone say "Everyone is queer." Great - so why say it? (ok, again I am being a bit antagonistic. The point in saying that everyone is queer is to point out that everyone has the potential in their methods of self-identification to undermine greater social narratives and structures. No one fulfills the requirements of society totally - no one is "perfect").

Again back to terms - so queer is less about an identifier as more of a subject position, and in this, it still has power. Who cares if some individual is queer when everyone is queer? But when we start understanding queer as a descriptor of a fundamental societal role - of the great societal gremlin, who tinkers and screws up the gears - we can start seeing the potentialities of the queer rights movement. This movement must move away from identity politics, which can never serve to adequately encompass all that need it. I am tired of minorities within the queer community being thrown under the bus for the sake of the greater cause. Never should a trans woman be told her rights have to wait. It is time for a real queer movement, one that test structures and actively demands change on its own terms.

I am not exactly sure what this movement will look like, but I know that this movement will not wait for the right president to make all the changes. This movement will have at its center an understanding that a real citizen has the requirement to demand the rights afforded to her. Obviously, these demands must come through legal means - overt radicalism accomplishes nothing. What I want is a queer rights movement that does not just demand marriage rights for gays, but even questions the role of marriage in society. Do we need it? Are there better alternatives? More importantly, does it actually serve the country's best interests?

In someways, the queer rights movement is oddly a patriotic one. I think after years of Bush's rhetoric, it is hard to talk about patriotism without a gagging (and personally, I don't think Obama's rhetoric has helped). What does patriotism mean? Who in the hell knows...but I hope it has something to do with truly understanding the true values underpinning this nation. Yes, these values are often generalized in grand words such as freedom, and at that point they lose all meaning. But if we understand patriotism too as a structural position, then once again, we see something more substantive. Patriotism is about getting back to the something. Specifically, I think true patriotism is true patriotism is loving you country so much that you are willing to change it and its traditions when they are no longer socially viable. If being queer has taught us anything, it is that America must not accept a state of affairs where it's citizens are denied basic rights and acceptance (note I did not say tolerance). I think then that demanding these rights is a strong patriotic move.

So to summarize a bit: I would argue basically that identity politics worked for a bit, but it is now failing. Tolerance, which I think has been the end goal of many LGBT groups, is unacceptable. I know it is a step in the right direction, but damn it, queers deserve more than that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with homosexuality, and I think it is time to be a bit more intolerant of people who believe so. Like I said, I am not certain what I want the new queer rights movement to look like, but its appeals will be more about basic American tenets and foundational virtues. It will realize that to actively and openly and even somewhat radically demand your rights is not just acceptable, but appropriate. Quit waiting for the whims of politics, queers!

I have tons more to say on this topic. But I am not sure I am being entirely clear, so I want to post this and get some feedback before I go further. Please do feel free to share this and respond.

Your Humblest Author.

P.S. This post is definitely a very raw draft of my current thoughts. I plan to do tons of research and work on what I have presented here, so please feel free to comment and give me research suggestions. Also, I apologize that my first real post in months is so polemical. Also, for my Canadian readers, this post was written primarily for an American audience and political environment. Although, I would love to see how it relates to Canada.

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:20:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers,

I do so apologize for my great abscence. Between final papers and then looking for employment, I did not have much time to ponder the depths of materials and their meaning. However, I am back and hopefully starting tomorrow, I can revive this blog.

Look forward to reengaging with the world.

Cheers!

Your Humble Author

365 days. One Man. Many Adventures

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 03:35:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers,

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you already know all about the 365 project I have started. The basics: I post a photo everyday for a year. The goal of this project is to record one year of my life. I think this next year will be an interesting one, so when some friends asked me to join in, I thought why the hell not.

So far the pictures have been kinda blah. Toronto is not exactly beautiful right now, and I am working on papers. But give me sometime, I hope to impress you all.

If you refuse to follow me on Twitter, where I am announcing my pictures once posted, you can just occasionally check into the picasa album here.

Well back to the papers,

Your Humble Author

Spring: Fresh, Lively, Happy

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:57:00 +0000

Gentle Readers,

Excuse this completely non-academic post, but last night I changed my desktop quite drastically. I wanted something brighter, happier, more energetic to usher in Spring.

My design is stolen from this Lifehacker post.

Here it is:

Happy Spring!

Your Humble Author

Spenser and Materialism

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:13:00 +0000

My Gentle Readers,

Perhaps you do not know my love for Edmund Spenser and his wonderful epic The Faerie Queene. Well now you do. World, meet my obsession, my academic love. In fact, I love ol' Spenser so much that I am planning to make his epic the center of my dissertation research (Oh and this blog's title is a direct quote from the first stanza of his work). So let me tell you a bit about The Faerie Queene.

First, you should know it is epic, as in an epic. Truth. But this is not your Virgilian lets-follow-one-man's-exploits epic, nope, Spenser's is what we might call a Romantic epic. It is episodic (some have called it Ovidian - I cringe at such arguments) and it is about knights. I generally find it quite temporally complex and problematic. Spenser starts plot lines, forgets them, and then just picks them back up again 50 pages later. Can we say super fun times? Also, it is often allegorical. This is not your Bunyanesque style allegory, but rather a dynamic varying text. When you met Truth, she might be Truth, she might just be a good Christian woman, she might be crazies, oh and her name is never Truth but Una - Listen to the context and you will go far.

So why the breakdown? Well I want to throw out my thoughts, my project, what hopefully will be life for 5-6 years in the very near future, and I want some feedback. Any thoughts would be amazing. So here goes.

So I find the allegory in Spenser to be the most interesting part of the text. As you know, I come from the school of thought that excepts that langauge is a fluid, dynamic, and at the end of the day constantly slipping - in fact, this seems pretty standard in the academy. Well, for me, this problem of language does not change when we start talking allegory. Just because some writer has titled his character Christian, it does not mean that the character at plot level ever fully jives with the higher ideal he is meant to represent (Even if Bunyan wants him to). The reason I love Spenser is that I feel he accepts this problem, and in a sense he plays with it. As such when we meet Errour, yes she embodies the ideal of error. She slows down our hero, prevents him from seeing or moving forward. But at the same time Errour is a mother protecting her off-spring (no matter how ugly) from an obvious threat. While I accept that this reading is not standard, the text allows for it, even makes space for it.

It is this space then that I see my future work. I want to talk about objects in Spenser. What I want to show is how Spenser plays on the cultural coding that we place around objects, exposing their inherent slippage - in a sense, for me, objects function just as allegorical characters. Thus when we see a book, we associate it with knowledge, etc. But what Spenser does, through using these objects as obvious allegorical tools, is to expose the inherent disconnect between the object and its cultural matrix. In a sense, Spenser will become a way for me to revisit the ways in which objects are in process for us, and more importantly, how they resist the meanings we try to encode on them.

Hopefully, over the course of the next few weeks I can post a few short "papers" with specific close readings helping to show what I am doing. Your help would be awesome!

Your Humble Author

In Which He is Inspired

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:02:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers,

CairoKate has brought back her blog. Yes! This is, of course, quickly led me to realize how much I have been neglecting my own. So I will make a promise to you. More posts, at least 3 a week, but not all will be that serious. Yes, we should still consider the great world of literature, but seeing as I am about to take a year off of Grad school, I figure I can afford a bit of non sequitur these days.

Speaking of which, I leave you with Whitney...

Your Humble Author

Toward a more Nuanced Post-Structuralism

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:00:00 +0000

My Humblest Readers,

I apologize for my long absence. February was a long and trying month. I went to New York for a weekend, was rejected from the academy (I guess I need a year off anyway), and generally died of a head cold. But here I am, back to the important academic work that I pay so much to do. Expect more posts, final papers are coming up, and I have to work out my ideas.

So for today, I have a quote from C.S. Lewis that I would like to ponder a bit. It comes from his book A Preface to Paradise Lost, which oddly happens to be about Milton's amazing epic. Here is the quote:

The permanence, the indifference, the heartrending or consoling fact that whether we laugh or weep the world is what it is, always enters into our experience and plays no small part in that pressure of reality which is one of the differences between life and imagined life.
(pg 23)

(I really hate doing block quotes in Blogger - Mer)

Lewis's sentiment is one that in many ways is of an academic worldview that has been understated in the past few decades. With the rise of post-structuralist, constructionist, and reader-response literary criticism, it seems as if the world and its materiality are things that are to be affected, even effected, by humanity. The creative and imaginative moment has taken on the central focus. The world is no longer an essential, stable, graspable icon, but rather a mutable, human creation.

Yet despite these numerous theoretical approaches, the fact still remains that the world is in a sense a constant. Unless we find a way to actually destroy this planet, it will go on without us. Yes, it will be different, but still here. More importantly, the mark of humanity is in actuality a small one in the world's history. It is this idea that makes Lewis's adjectives "heartrending or consoling" all the more poignant. There is a sense that no matter how bad things seem; we can always subscribe to a greater narrative, a greater history. Of course, the reverse is that our lives are so insignificant, so minute.

While I could go on discussing the existential questions that arise from Lewis, I would prefer to refocus my discussion back to those theories I mentioned earlier. I find the quote so interesting in that it reminds me that there is a material world that does affect us as much as we affect it. Granted, I think that our understanding of this world is one that we create, is a moment of imaginative experience. But there are materials behind that experience. We create our world from something that is real.

As such, I think that our approach to more post-structuralist understandings of humanity must be done with a bit more complexity. We must quit eliding the real, even if the real itself is an idea we have created. In a sense, there is something real behind the real.

I know that I am just rambling - but I would still love to hear your thoughts. I definitely have something wrong, but I don't what. I know that I need to work on defining my terms more. Help Please!

-Your Humble Author

The Humanites: Thoughts By Another Author

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Pugh) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:30:00 +0000

Dear Gentle Readers,

In case you did not know, Preppy McPrepperson wrote a post in reponse to my apologia for the humanities. For the past month, since her post, I have been conflicted about responding. In some sense I should be able to provide a logical counter-point to her arguments. At the same time, I felt somewhat paralyzed - reading her piece made me feel as if I needed to justify not just the humanities, but my own personal choices, my reasons for doing what I do. I have yet to write a response. As such, when Dylz, who normally writes here, asked if he could pen up a response, I was more than happy to host.

I will be writing up my own response to Preppy's post quite soon, but for now here is Dylz...

-Your Humble Author

So here is his response:

I have quite a number of points that I wanted to make in response to these two pieces, but I'm going to focus on the discussion of how the humanities should be approached.

Colin Clout argues in his piece:

"Personally, I have always believed knowledge for knowledge sake, but I have come to realize that this trope is no longer satisfying. So what is the relevance, the importance of humanities? What is the functionality of the academy?

"If the humanities does anything, it serves to continually question and refigure cultural and social narratives. In light of the current economical arguments against high ed, it seems that academia's real ability is in questioning the need for functionality. What does it mean for something to be functional?"

Preppy McPrepperson does not enjoy this freeform approach to the humanities:

"I think a good researcher of culture can often determine beyond a reasonable doubt what people intended to accomplish and what others perceived. More importantly, however, I think it's AS windows into such motivations and societal implications that culture, or history, or really most branches of the humanities, matter to begin with."

Let me say first that endless hours are spent parsing through every record and clip of footage to decipher modern-day presidents, and still these men remain mysteries to us, and they are even real and recent. We can collect evidence and glean that some theories are more plausible than others, but there is an asymptote between us and certainty about historical events, with every inch we make towards it making the next inch ever harder to achieve. This goes doubly so when the figures we discuss are fictional.

I make that point to say that historical knowledge doesn't override the opportunity to try to look at works and events in new ways.

So we have two competing schools of thought, oftentimes described in all sorts of delightfully extravagant academic terms. Colin Clout could be called a post-modernist, a theorist, or an advocate of the reader response theory of literature. Preppy McPrepperson could be called a modernist, a historicist, or an author biography theorist.

But the root difference between these two schools of thought is what they seek. Colin Clout's school sees the humanities as fundamentally introspective, a chance to peer deep into ourselves by our response to these works. A mirror is not important for where it was made, but what we see in it. Preppy McPrepperson sees these works as artifacts of history, things that illuminate the world in which they were written, and in turn are illuminated by that world. These works were written by real men at real times in real places, and there are traces of fingerprints on them that cannot be smudged away no matter how hard we try.

People have a tendency to argue that one of these two positions is more valid than the other. Is there a shortage of books that I wasn't aware of? Are there only so many copies of A Midsummer's Night's Dream to go around, so that if those who see literature as windows into our own souls get all of the copies, those who want to try to glean what the sexual mores of the time were will be out of luck? Or is it that books come with instruction manuals, but there are only so many copies of the manuals to go around so only the top academics get them? Are people breaking the rules when they approach a book in one way or another? Or people going to be somehow stopped from reading a book one way or another?

I don't mean to sound like I'm simply preaching that everyone's right and pleading "Why-can't-we-all-get-along?" People who argue for one of these positions over the other generally have the luxury of coming from high schools and colleges that, even if they focused on one approach over the other in classes, made the resources available for students to take both approaches, even if they personally preferred one over the other when writing their papers.

Having spent the past half year in China, with an educational system that encourages neither approach to the humanities, I can speak to the value of both approaches. Here, classes are large and centered around the wisdom the teacher has to impart to the students, but, after over a hundred of years of historical and national reinterpretation, this boils down to "This is what this texts says about being a good Chinese person, now write it down so you can repeat it back to me on a test." Even classes in the arts are often focused on training students to expertly reproduce classical styles that are considered emblematic of China.

The sciences, math, and engineering have survived relatively well, and along with practical degrees like business and foreign languages, are generally more apolitical and more directly useful for development than the humanities. The result of this is that students take relatively few classes in the humanities, and the classes that they take are generally centered on having textbook knowledge of pre-established, accepted forms and interpretations.

In addition to what my students say to me directly, it's easy to see the results of their educational system in class discussions. There's a personal uniqueness and richness that isn't there, and creativity is difficult for them. Students don't take the initiative in conversations, and in any topic, be it history or dating, I usually have to do quite a bit of prompting to keep the conversation going. Also, it's hard for them to build on each others ideas. I run debates in class sometimes, and they find it plenty easy to disagree with each other, but it generally takes the form of each side restating their original position rather than taking on the structure of point, counter-point, counter-counter-point, etc. They also don't have much of a sense of their place in history. I'll ask about a particular event or era, a student will say a few words, such as how it was really the fault of the Japanese, and most of the rest of the class will nod approvingly.

And my students hate Chinese schools. They know what's wrong, and there are exceptions to all of the situations I just described, exceptions that give me great optimism for this country and admiration for my students. They want classes to be smaller and for students to have more independence. They know full well that they haven't had the chance to intensively learn how to think critically or express their own intellectual and artistic ideas, and they ache for it.

So what is the function of the humanities?

Texts as mirrors:
- creativity, the ability to put an established idea or work into an utterly new light, is fostered
- individual character is developed as one finds unique sets of thoughts and impressions to take away from a work
- personal enjoyment of life is increased (even if we're all just functional cogs in an economic machine, we should at least enjoy our time as cogs)
- even applying the most out-of-place, outlandish theories to a work has functional work in that it is a chance to put intellectual flexibility and rigor to the test, taking seemingly tenuous connections and crafting arguments to make them hold
- and so on

Texts as artifacts:
- a greater appreciation for the personality of history
- lessons that can possibly be applied to our current challenges
- an appreciation for how cultural and intellectual concepts develop over time, building on themselves, diverging, and countering each other
- a aptitude for taking ambiguous passages of text and knowledge of a persons context, and building a coherent framework for what their mindset might have been, ie, taking uncertain evidence and creating strong arguments
- and so on

A well rounded humanities education approaches texts in both ways, but what's most important is that we value the humanities.