Academy of Recreational Criticism

Plagiarism and Contextomy

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Poet) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:20:00 +0000

These examples are random, and yet it pains me (as both a student and teacher of literature) that the trend toward plagiarism and "contextomy" -or, quoting out of context- is increasingly written off as no big deal by popular culture. No apology is provided in either of the following examples. The responses, from the offending parties, do not even offer so much as a "my bad." But I cannot help but question, "What happened to scholarship?" Or, at the very least, "What happened to pride in a job well done?"

Example 1: Plagiarism
Chris Anderson's 'Free' appears to borrow freely from Wikipedia and other sources

First of all, Wikipedia? Are you kidding me? But more to the point- even school children know that plagiarism equals failure.

Example 2: Contextomy
Ann Coulter takes all kinds of liberties with her direct quotes

Coulter's bigotry and hatred anger me to begin with. Regardless, I find it hard to believe that even she could convince herself that she accurately captured the context of this New York Times quotation. She clearly has an agenda, but the degree of false attribution here is remarkable! This is exactly the sort of "quotation" I warn students against. To be fair, Coulter's usage is much bolder than I've seen from students. Why? Perhaps they know I'll mark them down for inaccurate scholarship and weakening their argument. Although, I would like to believe it has more to do with self-respect. Ann's response to Fraken is a logical fallacy, as well. But now I'm depressed.

Odds & Ends

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:05:00 +0000

Hey, everyone~I'm alive! Mostly, anyway. I'm in between summer courses and about half a million other projects, but I feel so bad about neglecting our little blog, and I've been coming across some really interesting stuff lately, so I thought I'd give you all some things to read/think about.

*****

First up, from the British Museum website on the Parthenon sculptures (the Elgin Marbles, read more about the controversy's history here.) (emphasis mine):

"The British Museum....is a unique resource for the world: the breadth and depth of its collection allows the world public to re-examine cultural identities and explore the complex network of interconnected world cultures. Within the context of this unparalleled collection, the Parthenon sculptures are an important representation of ancient Athenian civilisation.

Each year millions of visitors, free of charge, admire the artistry of the sculptures and gain insights on how ancient Greece influenced, and was influenced by, the other civilisations that it encountered.

The Trustees of the British Museum warmly welcome the opening of the New Acropolis Museum which will allow the Parthenon sculptures that are in Athens to be appreciated against the backdrop of ancient Greek and Athenian history. The new museum, however, does not alter the Trustees’ view that the sculptures are part of everyone’s shared heritage and transcend cultural boundaries. The Trustees remain convinced that the current division allows different and complementary stories to be told about the surviving sculptures, highlighting their significance for world culture and affirming the universal legacy of Ancient Greece."

Can we just talk about the language here for a second? First of all, this emphasis on "world public" and "world culture"-could it be more paternalistic? This is the British Museum basically saying, "we have the authority to act as curators for the world, by which we mean all you puny countries we took stuff from during our years as a vast, evil empire, because we represent the whole world."

Okay, I may be embroidering a bit. But the sentiment is there-the idea that things that are important to humanity are better off with [Western, Anglo] curators so that more [Western, Anglo, or privileged] people get to see them. "World public"=people in or able to travel to England (therefore, people who either live there or have enough money/privilege to go there [which totally undermines this 'free of charge' thing they're so proud of]).

All this stuff about "transcend[ing] cultural boundaries" is really the British Museum's way of positioning themselves as having transcended centuries of imperialism, paternalism, and other forms of international conflict, even as they continue to exert imperialistic authority by refusing to return the sculptures. It's like people in the US who think it's okay to make racist jokes because having an African-American president means racism doesn't exist anymore. Teh logik it hurtz my brainz.

I haven't had a chance to see the sculptures [yet], but I hear they're pretty awesome, and it would be cool to see them without having to go to Greece. BUT, I do think that's where they should be [unless Greece decides to let them tour]. In case you couldn't tell. What do you think?

*****

Next, something less controversial. If you haven't already, check out this fascinating article by Lera Boroditsky of Stanford. A few highlights:

"Follow me to Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York, in northern Australia. I came here because of the way the locals, the Kuuk Thaayorre, talk about space. Instead of words like "right," "left," "forward," and "back," which, as commonly used in English, define space relative to an observer, the Kuuk Thaayorre, like many other Aboriginal groups, use cardinal-direction terms — north, south, east, and west — to define space.1 This is done at all scales, which means you have to say things like "There's an ant on your southeast leg" or "Move the cup to the north northwest a little bit." One obvious consequence of speaking such a language is that you have to stay oriented at all times, or else you cannot speak properly. The normal greeting in Kuuk Thaayorre is "Where are you going?" and the answer should be something like " Southsoutheast, in the middle distance." If you don't know which way you're facing, you can't even get past "Hello." "

Cool, huh? When I mentioned this to my mom (hi, mom!), she brought up the problem of people with no sense of direction, people who couldn't find their way out of a chalk circle with a map (hi, mom!). How would they cope in a culture like this? Is our ability to orient ourselves in the space we occupy inherent, or is it (as this article would suggest), cultural? How might it change the way you think about your house, your neighborhood, or your city if this was your way of understanding orientation?

"[W]e gave people sets of pictures that showed some kind of temporal progression (e.g., pictures of a man aging, or a crocodile growing, or a banana being eaten). Their job was to arrange the shuffled photos on the ground to show the correct temporal order. We tested each person in two separate sittings, each time facing in a different cardinal direction. If you ask English speakers to do this, they'll arrange the cards so that time proceeds from left to right. Hebrew speakers will tend to lay out the cards from right to left, showing that writing direction in a language plays a role."

Guess what? I'm weird. Some of you knew this already, but what you may not have known is that my visualization of time is completely wrong for my linguistic background. This, for comparison, is the average native English speaker's conception of time (note my mad MS paint skillz):

Time moves from left to right and top to bottom, just like the way we would expect to see text printed on a page. But in my head, time looks like this:

Completely reversed. I have no trouble using standard calendars, but in my head, time goes left to write and bottom to top, and it has for as long as I can remember. Same goes for months in the year-May is to the right of now, July is to the left. Plus, if you were to ask me to draw my week on a blank piece of paper (not a pre-printed calendar) the standard way, I would have to pause to reorient and "translate" my mental image into the left-right, top-bottom format.

(Interestingly, spans of years (ie. 1950-2000) are left-right in my head.)

I've done some searching, and it seems to be a pretty rare thing. I've read about a few native English speakers who picture weeks right-left, but few or none who picture their days bottom-top. How about you guys? Any guesses as to what it means?

One more quote from the article (which you really should read for yourself, because it's incredibly cool):

"Does treating chairs as masculine and beds as feminine in the grammar make Russian speakers think of chairs as being more like men and beds as more like women in some way? It turns out that it does. In one study, we asked German and Spanish speakers to describe objects having opposite gender assignment in those two languages. The descriptions they gave differed in a way predicted by grammatical gender. For example, when asked to describe a "key" — a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish — the German speakers were more likely to use words like "hard," "heavy," "jagged," "metal," "serrated," and "useful," whereas Spanish speakers were more likely to say "golden," "intricate," "little," "lovely," "shiny," and "tiny." To describe a "bridge," which is feminine in German and masculine in Spanish, the German speakers said "beautiful," "elegant," "fragile," "peaceful," "pretty," and "slender," and the Spanish speakers said "big," "dangerous," "long," "strong," "sturdy," and "towering." This was true even though all testing was done in English, a language without grammatical gender. The same pattern of results also emerged in entirely nonlinguistic tasks (e.g., rating similarity between pictures). And we can also show that it is aspects of language per se that shape how people think: teaching English speakers new grammatical gender systems influences mental representations of objects in the same way it does with German and Spanish speakers. Apparently even small flukes of grammar, like the seemingly arbitrary assignment of gender to a noun, can have an effect on people's ideas of concrete objects in the world."

Since I've studied a few romance languages, this is something I've always wondered about. It has a lot of implications for how language is used/received in things like advertising, legislation, or literature.

For instance, if I read Baudelaire's "La Musique" in English, it seems either gender neutral or even masculine with its nautical images (a man at sea, the violence of a tempest), so that even a reading of the sexual imagery would be more inclined to consider the male body and the male experience. In French, though, it's full of feminine words: une mer (sea), ma étoile (star), la voile (sail), la toile (canvas), and la nuit (night) are all feminine, as is the title, which gives the poem a very different sort of texture. Obviously, even if the initial gendering of those words was neutral or arbitrary (another interesting question), the reception of them cannot be.

I'd love to hear some people with more experience in translation or comparative lit weigh in on this...

*****

Finally, other fun stuff I've marked as blogfodder in my Google reader:

DesignerMatt Dorfman's awesome wedding invitation.

Oddly modern-looking color photography from the turn of the century.

Marvel fails spectacularly to speak to its female fans.

And this. I have no idea what it is, but it's kind of fascinating.

On Labeling and Identity

noreply@blogger.com (Rhetorical Twist) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:44:00 +0000

I know our lovely little blog has been on hiatus a bit, but I'd like to initiate a conversation on identity, labels, and boxes. By "labels and boxes" I don't mean office supplies, but those organizing features that so many seem to need to fix to everyone in order to understand the world and put people in their proper category.

To begin, a some background and an anecdote.

As many of my fellow blogistas and those few that know my true identity are aware, I started dating the lovely woman named Teacher Poet about 9 months ago. This was the first female I had dated, and, of course, questions arose about my identity. Who was I? A lesbian? A bisexual? A heterosexual who happened to fall in love with this one woman? Over the course of these months we have been together, my particular philosophical/theoretical training (you know, feminism, gender studies, and the "posts:" post-modernism, post-structuralism) has caused me to shirk any kind of label in relation to my sexuality. This is because I look at most forms of identity as changing and in flux, and I don't think that who you date determines a thing about you. in other words, actions do not always equal identity (because how could they?).

Now, I do realize that not claiming some sort of label has all manner of implications for identity politics. We often need these labels in activism to decide who is marginalized, and therefore whose rights we are fighting for. You know, defining group identification and all that. In that case, I would gladly claim a label for a political purpose. If, for example, me standing up and saying, "I am a lesbian" gives me more, um, credibility (?) in fighting for gay civil rights to, for example, get married, then so be it. In general, though, I do not want to be referred to as a heterosexual, a lesbian, or a bisexual. Identity is in too much of a state of fluctuation for me to worry about such things. And what does it mean to be in one of those labels anyway? Again, we get into some complex issues regarding identity politics and tricky definitions.

So, recognizing that my decision to not claim any kind of label except in very specific cases has all kinds of implications and problems, I still stick behind it. If anything, the label "queer" fits very nicely, because from what I've heard it implies that you don't link sexuality to identity, you don't worry about which categories your behavior fits into, etc, etc, etc. That discussion is probably best for another time.

When I arrived at Cornfield U about 6 months ago, I was open about the fact that I was dating a woman to my fellow classmates, but I was also just as open about the fact that I do not like to claim labels for myself and why that was. Today, however, I discovered that despite the fact that I tell people why I don't want to be put in a box, they have put me in one anyway. I was just having an afternoon snack with a few girls in my program when they told me that they had told someone I was a lesbian (long story as to how that came up).

Now, let me make myself clear: I am not, not, not bothered by the fact that I was called a lesbian. What bothers me is that despite the fact that I have made it clear to these women that I do not claim a label (and WHY!) they still put me in a category based on the fact that I am dating a woman (a very wonderful and beautiful one, by the way :-)). They decided what my identity would be based on their own definitions. They put me in my proper box (and perhaps they did it because that is how they have to see the world. But why does it matter? It always makes me suspicious of people's motivations when they have to identify who's "gay" and who's "straight."). Part of me wants to say that perhaps we need a different classification system, one where there is a term that sums up my philosophy on identification and such. However, that wouldn't address the issue I am bringing up, would it?

My reason for posting this anecdote is to try and get a conversation going about identity and identity politics. I realize that I have raised many issues in this entry, and not all of them are particularly well fleshed out. How, for example, is my choosing to claim/not claim labels hurting/helping the LGBTQ community? How does this factor into identity politics? And am I just reading too much into all of this? :-)

Happy discussing.

Breathing Books

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:06:00 +0000

Hey, book lovers! Check this out:

Things - Edith Kollath Creates Books that Breathe from Bre Pettis on Vimeo.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:15:00 +0000

Time to spend lots of money! No, the economy's not in great shape right now, and you've probably got a bit of debt piling up. Sure, the obsession with stuff has some serious consequences.

But did you know that you can do your bit to save the economy by buying stuff?

Of course, what you buy is almost as important as how much you spend. Make the wrong decision, and you could end up in the doghouse.

So, Target wants to make things a little easier by sorting their products into appropriate categories for the special people in your life:

So, a few of these "personalities" have pretty similar gender options ("Doting Grandma"/"Doting Grandpa" etc).

Others, however, have only rough equivalents. How about "Corporate Diva" and "Office All-Star," for instance? Here we have a woman's success as a personality trait, one with negative connotations of being arrogant, self-centered, and hard to get along with. The man's success, on the other hand, is attributed to skill. It also links him to sports at which he, presumably, also excels. But not like a diva; the all-star is the best on his team. We could also look at "Corporate" as an adjective implying the cold, cut-throat world of business and "Office" as a team-oriented space. It almost turns the "man as rugged individual, woman as social" on its head, except that it turns the woman into an aggressive loner (as women in the business world are often stereotyped to be).

Then we have "Nature Lover" and "Outdoor Explorer." Anyone else seeing hippy treehugger on one side and mountaineer on the other? That's encoded in the language. "Nature" implies a more subjective or experiential perspective, one which is frequently associated with positive things like harmony or order and gendered representations ("natural order of things," "Mother Nature"). "Outdoor," on the other hand, is equivalent to "wilderness," or that which is "outside" the limits of civilization. Rather than a place of order or harmony, it is untamed and dangerous. Of course, "Lover" is connected with emotion and peaceful co-existence, whereas "Explorer" sounds an awful lot like "conquerer" in connotation. So, women are in sync with the harmonic order of things, and men are brave conquerers of untamed wilderness. Yeah.

One more: "Domestic Goddess" and "Mr. Fix-it." The "Domestic Goddess" is not only responsible for the peace of the household; if we look at representations of goddesses in popular culture, she is also hyper-feminine and sexualized. She is like the 19th century ideal of the "angel in the house," a woman who is responsible for maintaining a peaceful home (so her husband has nothing to worry about there) and keeping her family morally upright. Compare to "Mr. Fix-it," who, by definition, appears when something goes wrong to make it right. He is the rescuer, the one who steps in when the poor female's brain has been overtaxed by problems like leaky pipes or squeaky doors. Notice how she maintains an aura or atmosphere of peace, whereas he takes an active role in fixing things that go all pear-shaped.

I want to emphasize the problem that these stereotypes create for everyone who doesn't fit traditional gender roles. By pigeonholing desires based on gender, companies define the limits not only of proper behavior but also of proper self-identification. A man should not want to hug a tree; a woman should not want to mend a flat tire. A "Guy's Guy" should want things to do with beer and meat, especially things covered in camo. By buying the proper things, by accessorizing one's gender identity, a person submits his/her/hir gender expression for the approval of the community. This system renders invisible those who either diverge from traditional roles for their genders or whose gender expression doesn't fit traditional categories at all.

And I didn't even go into the kids' categories...

What are your experiences with gendered marketing? Have you ever been "targeted" (or not) based on presumed gender (ie Facebook ads, telemarketers asking for your husband/father?) Ignored or assaulted by perfume spritzers in malls? Had salespeople recommend or discourage you from clothes based on (perceived) gender?

A Little Introspection

noreply@blogger.com (Rhetorical Twist) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:47:00 +0000

I'd like to share an excerpt from the beginning of my cover letter for my reflective teaching portfolio (it's obviously in the draft stages, I'm just putting it out there to perhaps generate some discussion):

"I don’t know who learned more this semester: me or my students. As I began teaching for the first time, I found that the gap between theory (in which I was fairly well versed) and practice (which I had none at all) was a lot larger than I had imagined. At the beginning of the semester, I found myself standing on the theory side of a very large canyon, faced with how I would get to the practice side. I could not easily step over the gap as I had previously imagined. I had to find other ways to connect the two sides so that my teaching would not be totally divorced from the material realities of the classroom, and so that they would inform each other. Over the semester, I did a lot of things to try and close that gap: I built bridges of various kinds, I had people assist, and I took a chance on running and jumping. Most of these attempts ended in me flying easily over the gap. Some of them, however, ended in me crashing onto the canyon floor, staring up at my students peering down at me with quizzical expressions, not knowing if I could bring myself to go back to teaching ever (ever, EVER!) again..."

Warning, contains nudity and possibly feminism.

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:27:00 +0000

Check out this "about" statement from clothing company "Two in the Shirt" [emphasis mine]:

Two In The Shirt is a fresh new company with a focus on bringing tastefully provocative clothing to the forefront of fashion. The name 'Two In the Shirt' is derived from the acronym T.I.T.S., which is quite fitting considering the nature of the clothing itself. T.I.T.S. merchandise consists of men's and women's apparel printed with original designs. Each design showcases classy prints of nude or nearly nude women. "Like a training bra, support T.I.T.S."

I'm intrigued by the contrast between the rhetoric of this statement ("tastefully," "classy") and the visual rhetoric of the website (I'm not linking it here, but you can find it if you want to. Some images on the blog are VERY explicit). In the "lifestyle" slideshow, all the clothes (most with provocative images of women on them) are modeled by men in dominant, powerful postures. Images of women in the blog are hyper-sexualized and, often, faceless. If you head over there, I recommend checking out the "Wifey" and "American Flavors" collections.

There is a long tradition of depicting the human body, especially the female body, in fine arts, and that's part of what T.I.T.S. is trying to evoke with their language here. Compare one of their products with a more recognized "artistic" nude, Manet's "Dejeuner sur L'herbe," which caused great controversy when it was first exhibited:

I'm going to hold back a bit and see what you all think about these. What similarities/differences do you see in these two approaches to the female body and the power relationship between women and [actual or implied] men? Is there something artistic about what this company does?

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 04:37:00 +0000

This blog was really meant to be more academic/personal than political, but somehow the political keeps edging in, so let's run with it, shall we?

I've met an awful lot of people since I started grad school who see our field as apolitical, and I have a real problem with that. What we study and teach wasn't created in a vacuum. The writing of it, and our reception of it, is colored by innumerable histories, prejudices, and assumptions. Even the choice to look at something as a purely aesthetic object makes a statement about the relationship between Literature/literature and society. That's a context, and context (constituted of relationships and hierarchies) is political. And it's something we *have* to be aware of, if we want our work to have integrity.

Of course, the political in research is a different animal to the political in the classroom. Matthew M. DeForrest expressed it much better than I could a couple years ago on InsideHigherEd:

How often do we assign plays like Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People or essays like Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” or Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and then discuss the issues of war and civil rights that swirled around them yet limit the realm or discussion to the purely academic?

They often hear us speak. They do not often hear about what we do.

So long as we do not model behavior, students will not see anyone participating in the civic realm. The politicians they see on television aren’t real to them. They do not regularly see a person that they know and can personally identify with actively engaging in the civic discourse or hear about the struggle to choose the best course of action to make our towns better from an array of bad options.

What I am advocating here is not something tied to one party or political philosophy. Whether you are a left-leaning anthropology professor or a member of the right of center business school set, we should all be active participants in the civic realm and, importantly, our students should know that those activities are a part of our lives.

This blog, of course, is not a classroom, and so I feel perfectly free to impose my political position on you with impunity. So make a note: tomorrow afternoon, millions of people in the US and around the world will be gathering to celebrate love and take a stand for equal rights. I'm one of them, and I hope you will be as well. Check the links to find details about rallies near you.

This song is "an anthem for the equal rights movement born from the passage of gay-marriage bans in the United States during the 2008 election. Footage in the video is from the candle vigil rally and protest march in San Francisco days after the election.

The song will be up on iTunes and other electronic stores for purchase in about four to six weeks (by mid/late December), and I [Sean Chapin, the awesome fellow who wrote the song] will be donating most of the proceeds to charity."

LYRICS:

When you're in doubt take my hand
I'll stand by your side tonight cause
We will be better when we are together and
We are united in love

When in despair take my arm
As I hold you close to me and
We will go farther when we are together cause
We are united in love

When you're feeling good
I'll capture the time
When you're feeling sad
I'll help you remember
When you're feeling fine
We'll stay on our path
When you're feeling bad
I will be there for you and

Our love will sing loud and strong
Our love will keep going on

When you're in fear take my heart
I'll give you a hug tonight cause
We will be better when we are together and
We are united in love

When you're in angst take my lead
I'll show you the way today cause
We will go farther when we are together cause
We are united in love

When we're feeling rich
I'll never let go
When we're feeling poor
I'll help you recover
When we laugh away
I'll give you a smile
When we shed a tear
I'll comfort you gently and

Our love will sing loud and strong
Our love will keep going on

When you don't know take my word
I am here to stay with you, cause
We will be better when we are together and
We are united in love

We are united in love
United we love

noreply@blogger.com (Rhetorical Twist) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 03:02:00 +0000

I am sure that my fellow blogistas are just as disappointed about the passing of Proposition 8 in California as I am. In fact, I definitely cried about it. More than once. It was only compounded by the fact that the ballot measures banning gay marriage also passed in Arizona and Florida. Oh, and gay couples can't adopt children in Arkansas, because we all know that gay folks will corrupt the poor innocent little children in their care.

You all know that I'm an optimist and an idealist, but this was a major blow. It's hard to keep your head up when you face this kind of discrimination.

While browsing Feministing today, I came across this post about the Prop 8 aftermath. At least in California, people are not giving into this easily. You can read about all the protests in the post. At the end of the entry, there's a quote by a blogger named Pam:

"If victories make us complacent, it is our defeats that rally us to a new level of community and activism. We stood up after mortal blows from Anita Bryant pushing her anti-gay vitriol in Florida. We rallied to the bedside of Matthew Shephard in his family's time of tribulation. More recently, we re-committed our vows to protect our youngest members in the wake of the murder of Lawrence King by a fellow classmate. In the wake of the passage of Prop 8, we see now and will see another historic re-awakening of our community."

My response to that: Hell yeah!

Happy Halloween!

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:49:00 +0000

I've had more work than time lately, but everyone needs a little procrastination now and again. In that spirit, here are a few spooky internet things for Halloween...

A virtual video of Edgar Allen Poe reciting "The Raven":

Edgar Allan Poe "The Raven" Poem Animation Movie
by Poetrylad

A choose-your-own-adventure zombie movie:

http://www.survivetheoutbreak.com/

And, most terrifying of all:

Between I and Thou

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:12:00 +0000

In a class this week someone mentioned Martin Buber in the context of a discussion on the responsibility of an editor. Since I'd never heard of this fellow before, I started doing some informal research to see what he was all about. So here's me thinking out loud about what I found...

One of the ideas Buber is most known for is the "I/thou" and "I/it" perspective on religion (and, by expansion, relationships of many kinds). "Between I and Thou there is no purpose, no greed and no anticipation," he wrote (I and Thou). Real living is composed of I/thou encounters, spaces in which each participant exists unreservedly in the presence of the other. There must be two because they affirm one another.

I/it occurs when the I is imposed, as it almost always must be at some point, by preconception, assumption, or objectification, onto the other, taking away its independent existence by conceiving it as a construction in the mind of the I.

If we think of the editor of a text as the I, then we can think of the original author(s), previous editors, potential readers, and the text itself as the thous. And I have to wonder if its possible for an editor to maintain any of these I/thou relationships and still perform her/his function, which is, essentially, about making assumptions and impositions. Is it something to strive for anyway? I want to say yes, because I think my approach as an editor (in different kinds of situations) has generally been grounded in an essential respect for the text and its creator(s). It doesn't have to be-you don't have to be-what I expect/assume/want you to be.

It very quickly begins to sound very vague and touchy-feely, but that's not what I mean at all. It's not that the I/thou encounter takes away the power of the participants; rather, it enhances their power because it is a relationship in which no one takes anything away from the other. In a relationship with a thou, I am not asked to be less than I am by another's expectations. It's something we experience in the best kinds of friendships, with people who know us better than we know ourselves, people from whom we don't need to hide anything.

"I knew nothing of books when I came forth from the womb of my mother, and I shall die without books, with another human hand in my own. I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human being looking at me."

"I think no human being can give more than this. Making life possible for the other, if only for a moment."

Martin Buber.

And, in a similar vein, here's a really charming book cover I stumbled across (via)(check the link for an interview with the designer:

Hello Fellow Academics...

noreply@blogger.com (DocHoc) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:18:00 +0000

Are we still alive out there?

We're halfway through
the
semester.

And, I
repeat:

are we still alive out there?

Hello Fellow Academics...

noreply@blogger.com (DocHoc) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:18:00 +0000

Important Academic and Life Concerning Announcement:

noreply@blogger.com (DocHoc) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:46:00 +0000

Today (Sunday, September 28, 2008)
is the first day in
two
straight
weeks
that I don't have to
grade a
single
paper.

I feel a breath of life returning; let the 24 hour celebration begin before receiving more papers on Monday!

The Feminist Pedagogue Experiences Some Existential Angst

noreply@blogger.com (Rhetorical Twist) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:58:00 +0000

I'm going to ask a question that could probably be the subject of a lengthy, academic article dialog.

As most of our dear readers know, I feel a strong commitment to feminist and critical teaching methodologies. For me, they really embody the kind of classroom that I want to run, and the kind of educational experience that I want my students to have. To that end, I've been trying to apply all of the things that I learned about feminist and critical pedagogy to my classroom. So far, it has worked well. I've been trying to put the class in their hands by having them control the discussions, etc, etc, etc. You get the idea.

However, I ran into a spot of trouble last week. On Wednesday, my normally attentive, on task class was out of control. They were unfocused, talking when others were, using their cell phones, and making inappropriate comments (not to mention that I was being observed when this went on--don't even get me started on that). I was completely shocked and caught off guard by their behavior. It made for a completely unproductive class.

So, the next time I saw them (today) I felt like I had to reinscribe myself as the center of authority in the classroom. There didn't seem to be any other way of handling their behavior (humor didn't work, that just fed into it). I had to tell them that I was disappointed by their actions (not to mention caught off guard by it), and I had to remind them that I was the teacher who held the almighty power of the grade, and could dock their participation points if I so chose (not in those words, exactly, but that's what I felt like I was doing. The point is: I held "The Grade" over their heads, however subtle it was). I hated doing it, because I felt like I was setting myself up as the sole authority, completely going against my philosophy of teaching. This is not to say that I had no authority before, or that I went in as this totally easy going, "do whatever you guys want" kind of teacher. However, my feminist pedagogy is contingent upon the class being reasonable and respectful of each other, which they clearly weren't. So there's where it broke down.

So here comes the question: How do I continue to use feminist and critical pedagogy in the classroom when things like this happen? I can't allow the class to get out of control, but it becomes difficult to stick to the shared power model if they are being disrespectful and not focusing.

[Note to any "idealism squishers": I'm still stickin' to these principles. They just need some ironing out. So leave my little marshmallow of idealism alone! I won't give up the fight!]

What am I Doing on a Saturday Night?

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 02:58:00 +0000

Ladies, we've been tagged.

Tina at The Bigger They Get (who is, by the way, the top Google result for ["George Clooney" "chocolate pants"]) got us. She says, "Okay, I’m going to tag some of my favorite academic chickies who need to do something unrelated to things like composition and rhetoric and literature and literary criticism and textual theory and thinking up assignments and grading papers and attending classes and, and, and…well, they NEED a distraction. So, Lady Audley, Rhetorical Twist, Teacher Poet and DocHoc, spill…" The rules:

Meme Terms and Conditions

Link to the person who tagged you.
Mention the rules on your blog.
List six unspectacular things about you. [As if there's *anything* about us that isn't spectacular...].
Tag six other bloggers by linking to them.

So, six unspectacular things about Lady Audley:

1. My favorite bookmark at the moment is a small piece of paper with the William Carlos Williams poem, "This is just to say" on it.

2. I have bed sheets with fish on them, which I love because they remind me of Mrs. Dalloway: "For this is the truth about our soul, he thought, our self, who fish-like inhabits deep seas and plies among obscurities threading her way between the boles of giant weeds, over sun-flickered spaces and on and on into gloom, cold, deep, inscrutable; suddenly she shoots to the surface and sports on the wind-wrinkled waves; that is, has a positive need to brush, scrape, kindle herself, gossiping" (p.161, Harvest Books 1990 edition).

3. I am a sucker for steampunk. Like these guys:

And this.

4. I know I'm an English nerd, but I really like geometry.

5. The first book I remembering thinking of as my favorite was The Neverending Story.

6. One of my biggest pet peeves is when a footnote give away a plot point. Things like, "the author's use of water images foreshadows [character's] drowning."

And I'm tagging whichever of our readers feels so inclined. (Leave a comment with a link to your blog, or post your answers as a comment).

Thinking is not part of your DNA...or is it?

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Poet) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:31:00 +0000

Are you a born conservative (or liberal)?
A new study suggests that your political attitudes are wired in from the beginning.

By Denise Gellene, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 19, 2008

Oh, please! I'm just thankful the end of the article pointed out how one could make a case for interpreting fear as making one pro/con gun control. Otherwise, I would be very disappointed with the Los Angeles Times.

Sneaky Little Rights Violations

noreply@blogger.com (Rhetorical Twist) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:06:00 +0000

I am well aware that universities work in weird ways. However, I got this e-mail a few days ago, and I am pretty sure there are some constitutional rights violations going on. I'm horrified. Now, I know they have sneaky ways of getting around inconsequential things like constitutional rights (ie: like the way my dear alma mater did when certain fundamentalists came to town), but this irks me.

The text of the e-mail, followed by my questions (demarcated by dashes):

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Prohibited Political Activity :
Upcoming elections and how this impacts you as an employee

Tuesday, November 4, 2008, is the 2008 Presidential Election. There will be many activities on campus and nationwide related to the election over the coming months. So, it is important that as an employee of the [Cornfield Univ.], you are aware of the elements of the State Officials and Employees Ethics Act that may impact your participation. First and foremost, the law is not intended to hinder or in any way violate your individual freedoms. In fact, the activities defined as "prohibited" per the law are only prohibited while employees are on University time or using University resources or property. If the appropriate benefit time is charged and the activities do not take place on University property, it is permissible for you, while representing yourself individually (not as a University employee), to become involved in such events.

The concept of prohibited political activity is challenging to fully define, so it is always a good idea to consult with the University Ethics Office if you are unsure

Some of the main categories of commonly occurring prohibited political activity are explained below. Remember, these are things employees can not do while working, when on University property, while using University resources (e.g., phone, fax, paper, email, etc.), or when acting as a representative of the University; but they are things that can take place if the appropriate benefit time is used and University property and resources are not involved:

Preparing for or participating in any rally or event related to a specific political candidate, party, or referendum - this includes preparation and circulation of campaign materials, petitions, or literature
Soliciting contributions or votes on behalf of a particular political party or candidate
Assisting at the polls on behalf of any political party, candidate, or organization
Surveying or conducting an opinion poll related to anticipating an election outcome, or participating in a recount challenge related to an election outcome
Running for political office

The law isn't always as clear as we'd like, so here are a few specific examples to better define what is and what is not considered prohibited political activity (can't be performed on University time without appropriate benefit usage; and never on University property or using University resources):

Prohibited Political Activity	Acceptable Political Activity
Wearing a pin or t-shirt in support of the Democratic Party or Republican Party, or a Democratic/Republican candidate	Wearing a pin encouraging others to vote that is not specific to any particular party or candidate
A supervisor requiring an employee to engage in political activity outside of work	An employee independently choosing to engage in political activities outside of work
Distributing, producing, or posting flyers or other campaign literature on campus during lunch or break time	Distributing, producing, or posting flyers or other campaign literature at an off-campus location during lunch or break time
Registering employees to vote in a booth that is clearly designated to one political party or candidate	Registering employees to vote while on their lunch or other designated breaks in a party-neutral booth

Specific examples of things that are expressly prohibited include:

Placing a collection jar on your desk or even in a break room to solicit funds for a specific political candidate or party
Attending a rally on University property specific to a political candidate or party - regardless of whether or not you are on University time

The University Ethics Office can not and does not intend to police each of the campuses for political buttons, t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. Instead, we ask that employees educate themselves and become aware of their responsibilities to the law as it relates to employment with [Cornfield University]. Knowing the various aspects of the prohibited political activities section of the Ethics Act will simply assist you in acting in a manner that is consistent with the law.

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

All righty. I understand why it is unethical to use university resources available to you as an employee, or why it would be unethical to use the time they are paying you for to further your own political affiliations. HOWEVER, the fact that you cannot, at any time, engage in political activity on campus cannot be legal (wait, wait. Who am I kidding? Anything is legal under this administration). What I gather from this is that if you are an employee of the university (and guess who falls under this category? Moi) you may not ever, at any time, engage in political activity. That. Is. Out. Rageous. I am going to get in SO much trouble during my time here. So much.

Thoughts? I cannot be much more coherent than this because I am utterly flabbergasted. Rendered speechless.

I wonder if this applies to elections only, or all political activity? 'Cause if it's all, they should just fire me now...

"Fun" Reading and the Other Kind

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:46:00 +0000

Mama Audley and I have had this conversation many times. I tell her what I'm reading (Victorian novels, theory, philosophy, history), and she asks, "but what are you reading for fun?"

Then I irritate her by deliberately misinterpreting the question and saying, "this stuff is fun!"

But I know what she means: what am I reading simply for pleasure, deliberately resting my critical eye (insofar as it's possible) to just enjoying a book? Not for what I get out of it or what it says about its time or how I can teach/write about it, but just for its own sake. And when life gets busy and I feel like I'm constantly reading something for a reason or a goal, the answer is, too often, "not much," or "nothing."

So, earlier this week, in the middle of five projects that felt like fifteen, in the middle of constant and severe multi-tasking (the kind where you feel guilty for not working on three things at once), in the middle of citations and theory and archives and periodicals (all of which I love and enjoy, by the way), I turned off my computer one night, made myself a cup of tea, and read for fun.

My go-to book that evening (which is actually not mine, but was "borrowed" before I moved from Mama Audley's friend {and drinking buddy} Military Mom) was The Standard Book of British and American Verse, 1952, because it contains this poem:

When You Are Old and Grey, W B Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

On nights like that one I read it to myself, sometimes out loud and sometimes in my head, and the more I read it the more it sounds like music, and the more peaceful my mind becomes. Soon I'm not thinking about my to-do list or my what's-due list. I'm thinking about how beautiful those words are. Sometimes I read some of my other favorites, or I recite one of the handful I've memorized and so always have with me, but I always come back to this one. I could probably articulate why, but the point is, I don't have to. Because this, Mama Audley, is what I'm reading for fun.

So, my crazy, busy, book-loving friends. What are you reading for fun?

Duh Duh DUHHHH!: The Research Paper!

noreply@blogger.com (Rhetorical Twist) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:13:00 +0000

Dear teachers (old, new, and not yet practicing),

In a few weeks, my composition class will be embarking on the BIG research paper adventure. I'm not looking forward to it, if only because I have to re-learn how to teach them all the steps of the thing, which is something that I have internalized.

That aside, I am seeking some advice in terms of their topic. I want to give them the freedom to write about something that matters to them so that the paper is more than an fruitless exercise, but I don't want the topic to be too broad (ie: "write about whatever you want!") Therefore, I am seeking general topics that will allow for a variety of subtopics. One example is "education." That narrows the focus a little bit, but it allows them to pick something within education that matters to them.

Thoughts? Other suggestions for similarly broad, yet not too broad, topics?

Yours sincerely,
Rhetorical Twist

Just Call Me "The Liberator"

noreply@blogger.com (Rhetorical Twist) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:13:00 +0000

I had the first student come to talk to me about revisions on his first paper. After talking about his essay, he had to ask me one, final question:

"So, uh, do we need to have an intro, 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion? 'Cause, like, I didn't know what to put in the third paragraph."
"Well," I said, "you do need an intro and a conclusion, but you can use as many paragraphs as you need."
He looks at me suspiciously. "Really?"
"Really," I said. "If you need 2, use 2. If you need 4, use 4."
"But I thought..."
"You thought wrong."
"Um, okay. So, as many paragraphs as I need?"
"Yes, liberating, isn't it?"

Serving Your Country Linkapalooza

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Audley) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:39:00 +0000

This awesome blog has listed voter registration deadlines for every state, with links (via).

Why students are finding it difficult to vote.

Feministing calls out Republicans for trying to block foreclosure victims from voting.

Journalism or entertainment? The media's election "coverage" (via).

John "I-Was-A-Prisoner-Of-War" McCain doesn't have a position on helping veterans register to vote.

Thought of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Poet) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:11:00 +0000

Worksheets are environmentally unfriendly tactile evidence of students' "work" (not to be confused with learning) that is, in turn, offered up to the gods (by the demi-gods) for appeasement.

Lesson Planning While Drunk.

noreply@blogger.com (Teacher Poet) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:28:00 +0000

I learned an important lesson today. Mixing allergy medicine with lack of that wonderful rejuvenating fluid we call water can yield disastrous results! And caffeine does not remedy the situation. Oh, no. It certainly doesn't.

Here's what happened. I got a little busy, you know? I may have skipped lunch to talk about the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis with Dr. Coffee Beans. Okay, I did skip lunch. I generally neglected to drink any fluids throughout the day. I made it home just fine (because my empty stomach kept me focused on getting myself to the dinner table). Approximately two minutes after the table was cleared, however, I crashed.

As in, didn't even make it through the first of four readings. I simply had to read the short stories and write a lesson plan that would apply Fretag's Pyramid. Remember that plot outline? Set up, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution? Apparently that's Gustav Fretag's organizational skills. Suffice to say I did not get so far as the rising action of the first reading. Um, yea.

Took an hour nap and woke up worse than before it. So much for a power nap, eh? Then finished the first reading and tried to make it into the second but found myself nodding off by the first paragraph. And, let me just add, the reading is interesting! Took another nap and woke up feeling like I downed two bottles of night time Nyquil.

In other words, it feels like someone stuffed a pillow in my brain. Additionally, two Serta counting sheep have claimed my eyelids and have bedded down on them, forcing my eyes shut. I have a feeling you could tell me that there had been a terrible mistake and my entire family had died and all I would be able to manage as a reply was, "Mm? I just wanna sleep five more minutes, Mommy...five more...zzzz."

Rhetorical Twist, this was just a dramatization. I promise I will drink lots of water tomorrow and eat a healthy lunch. No worries.

Academic Standards: Students, there won't be a test on this. Use your No. 2 pencil to write the following on your SCANTRON, "In case of fire, throw this in."

Visual learning aid to help illustrate my productivity level today:

They Call Me "Freeway Flyer"

noreply@blogger.com (DocHoc) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:43:00 +0000

The life of a traveling adjunct.