A windy, cold, and rather boring day. No news of any kind, on any front. No interesting mail. No interesting emails. I'm not particularly interested in what I'm reading. Even the coffee shop where I was reading it wasn't interesting.
--Hence, for the sake of contrast, the absurdly enthusiastic post title. It's a direct quote from Ancrene Wisse Book 3, line 453 (EETS no. 325, p. 59). The repetition is in the original, as are the exclamation points (which I strongly suspect are an editorial edition).
(Okay. Obviously I know they're an editorial edition.)
When was the exclamation point invented, anyway? It's a funny sort of thing, when you think about it. I can see the usefulness of punctuation that signifies the end of a statement, or a question, or even a pause--but excitement? I suppose they're useful for indicating emphasis, too. Perhaps my puzzlement comes from a general dislike of the exclamation point, although I admit to using it in the occasional email. Oh yeah, and in yesterday's post title.
I do not, however, employ emoticons.
But (I hasten to add) several people whom I esteem very highly, and who are very good writers, do. So even my snobbery re. such shorthand inflection must be mitigated.
What is the purpose of this blog, anyway? Sooner or later I'll have to figure that out.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
EL101: Sex and Violence in the Movies!
I was having lunch with a friend today, and we got onto the topic of course development. We're both applying for jobs and fellowships, and have therefore had to craft several course proposals over the last few months. The most interesting courses we could come up with were, naturally, the ones with the sexiest subject matter. From what we've been able to gather--and this shouldn't come as a shock--sex, violence, and movies seem to be what draw students in the biggest droves. Since my friend works on topics including (but not limited to) queer theory and porn, and his period is the twentieth century, he's got at least two of those bases easily covered. The Middle Ages, however, can arguably span all three (if one includes some of the atrocious but endlessly entertaining King Arthur movies in one's syllabi).
But thinking about What Kinds Of Classes Will Undergraduates Like reminds me a little too much of the Student Affairs scholarship I had to read a few years ago for a former campus job. Many of the articles I read contained disconcertingly unapologetic references to students as "consumers," and noted an increasing trend in higher education towards thinking of students as potential customers. The standard line on this was, "We may not like it, but this is the way it is--so we need to start thinking of ways to attract and retain students, who have access to a wide variety of products [i.e. universities/colleges], and are free to abandon our products for more appealing ones." This line was used in defense of, for example, building newer and better student centers and athletic facilities, encouraging student input into major requirements, and grading. While improving student facilities is certainly a good thing, this kind of discourse is deeply disturbing--for obvious reasons, I think. Universities shouldn't be based on a consumer-product model. Students aren't "buying" degrees (at least, I hope not) (and even if, in some sense, they are, shouldn't we be a little less...obvious about it?).
I should note that this consumerist discourse was not uncontested. Some scholars argued against it, and even the defenses of it were presented in a "we all know this sucks, but what are you going to do" sort of way. Nonetheless, it's troubling, and while I'm all for coming up with courses that are academically rigorous AND sound interesting, I haven't quite worked out for myself the line between encouraging students and tailoring my proposals to match their pre-formed interests. Because one thing that can happen in a good class--which has happened to me, more than once, in the courses that I remember most fondly--is that you become interested in something that didn't excite you previously.
Now, I'm probably more concerned about this issue than I need to be, since a quick glance at just about any university department's course listing reveals plenty of classes that contain no mention of sex, violence, or movies. My friend and I are grad students with limited course proposal experience. When we've proposed courses, they've been for summer-studies programs and other elective venues, which means that we're competing with a large number of other exciting-sounding classes in all sorts of disciplines. In that kind of a situation, you need to do something to make your class stand out; and, well, there are some pretty cheap and obvious ways of doing that.
(They don't always work, though. I've had several classes cancelled due to under-enrollment, and, in at least one case, "film" was in the title. Still, I wonder what would have happened if I'd thrown in an off-hand reference to sexuality or sword-fighting? Couldn't have hurt....)
But thinking about What Kinds Of Classes Will Undergraduates Like reminds me a little too much of the Student Affairs scholarship I had to read a few years ago for a former campus job. Many of the articles I read contained disconcertingly unapologetic references to students as "consumers," and noted an increasing trend in higher education towards thinking of students as potential customers. The standard line on this was, "We may not like it, but this is the way it is--so we need to start thinking of ways to attract and retain students, who have access to a wide variety of products [i.e. universities/colleges], and are free to abandon our products for more appealing ones." This line was used in defense of, for example, building newer and better student centers and athletic facilities, encouraging student input into major requirements, and grading. While improving student facilities is certainly a good thing, this kind of discourse is deeply disturbing--for obvious reasons, I think. Universities shouldn't be based on a consumer-product model. Students aren't "buying" degrees (at least, I hope not) (and even if, in some sense, they are, shouldn't we be a little less...obvious about it?).
I should note that this consumerist discourse was not uncontested. Some scholars argued against it, and even the defenses of it were presented in a "we all know this sucks, but what are you going to do" sort of way. Nonetheless, it's troubling, and while I'm all for coming up with courses that are academically rigorous AND sound interesting, I haven't quite worked out for myself the line between encouraging students and tailoring my proposals to match their pre-formed interests. Because one thing that can happen in a good class--which has happened to me, more than once, in the courses that I remember most fondly--is that you become interested in something that didn't excite you previously.
Now, I'm probably more concerned about this issue than I need to be, since a quick glance at just about any university department's course listing reveals plenty of classes that contain no mention of sex, violence, or movies. My friend and I are grad students with limited course proposal experience. When we've proposed courses, they've been for summer-studies programs and other elective venues, which means that we're competing with a large number of other exciting-sounding classes in all sorts of disciplines. In that kind of a situation, you need to do something to make your class stand out; and, well, there are some pretty cheap and obvious ways of doing that.
(They don't always work, though. I've had several classes cancelled due to under-enrollment, and, in at least one case, "film" was in the title. Still, I wonder what would have happened if I'd thrown in an off-hand reference to sexuality or sword-fighting? Couldn't have hurt....)
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Half-Assed Post
I love this. I like crafts and I like public art, so knit graffiti is a very pleasing idea. Unfortunately, the site doesn't seem to be working very well, and you can't see the gallery pictures, but it's worth checking out regardless.
Okay: It's cold, and I keep falling asleep for some reason. So that's it for today.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Job Market Checklist
1. Apply for every job in your field.
2. Check email every fifteen minutes or so for a period of about 12 weeks.
3. Check Chronicle job wiki at least three times a day. Attempt to calculate odds of various unlikely events (e.g., no one that X University interviewed at the MLA turns out to be viable; your application happens to get a favorable second look; XU doesn't want to go through the hassle of more interviews; out of the blue, you get an offer. Reject this daydream as absurd. Repeat.)
4. Lose all interest in own scholarly work. Write a novel instead.
5. Finish said novel. Recommence fretting.
6. Start a blog.
7. Resign yourself to going on the market again next year. Become excited about next year's job market. Begin calculating odds of various Ideal Institutions hiring in your field in the near future.
8. Remember that you need to pay rent next year, too. Apply for some more jobs.
9. Spend half a day trying to determine why your blog isn't showing up on Google searches.
10. Realize that scholarly work is vastly more enjoyable than writing cover letters. Enjoy renewed interest in academic projects.
11. Work.
12. Recal that you don't have a job yet. Check job listings. Become enraged that there are no new jobs in your field. Wonder why you didn't just go into comp, or something.
13. Be glad you didn't go into comp. Remember: Everyone gets a job. EVERYONE GETS A JOB. Right? Right??
2. Check email every fifteen minutes or so for a period of about 12 weeks.
3. Check Chronicle job wiki at least three times a day. Attempt to calculate odds of various unlikely events (e.g., no one that X University interviewed at the MLA turns out to be viable; your application happens to get a favorable second look; XU doesn't want to go through the hassle of more interviews; out of the blue, you get an offer. Reject this daydream as absurd. Repeat.)
4. Lose all interest in own scholarly work. Write a novel instead.
5. Finish said novel. Recommence fretting.
6. Start a blog.
7. Resign yourself to going on the market again next year. Become excited about next year's job market. Begin calculating odds of various Ideal Institutions hiring in your field in the near future.
8. Remember that you need to pay rent next year, too. Apply for some more jobs.
9. Spend half a day trying to determine why your blog isn't showing up on Google searches.
10. Realize that scholarly work is vastly more enjoyable than writing cover letters. Enjoy renewed interest in academic projects.
11. Work.
12. Recal that you don't have a job yet. Check job listings. Become enraged that there are no new jobs in your field. Wonder why you didn't just go into comp, or something.
13. Be glad you didn't go into comp. Remember: Everyone gets a job. EVERYONE GETS A JOB. Right? Right??
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Hooray for technology
This Ancrene Wisse glossary is proving so useful to me today that I must post a link to it.
Using the "find" function in online glossaries has forced me to change my stance against electronic texts. Seriously. Life is so good.
(All right, so the site doesn't seem to know how to handle yoghs very well; nonetheless, it's a vast improvement over the skads of dictionaries that I would normally require.)
Using the "find" function in online glossaries has forced me to change my stance against electronic texts. Seriously. Life is so good.
(All right, so the site doesn't seem to know how to handle yoghs very well; nonetheless, it's a vast improvement over the skads of dictionaries that I would normally require.)
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Anchorites in peril
In an effort to be a good scholar and fill in some of the gaps in my learning, I've been reading Ancrene Wisse. The language is a bit difficult--I normally work in later Middle English, e.g. Chaucer and the Pearl-ms and the like--but it's good practice. And there are some great words in there. Some of them are the obvious precursors to modern words, such as "cnawleachunge", and then there are the Germanic words we've lost, like "smecchen." I also have a real fondness for the i- constructions, or whatever they're technically called--you know, "iwis," ismecchet," "iheren." The sound of the language keeps me going even when I'm less interested in the content.
But there is some good stuff in there, content-wise. Last night I was reading the section in Part 2 where the author warns the anchorites against hearing ungodly speech, particularly the speech of men who come around to, you know, chat. Watch out, it warns, for guys who answer your rebuffs with speeches like the following:
"Ich nalde forte tholie death thenche fulthe toward te" (ant swereth deope athes), "ah that Ich hefde isworen hit, luvien Ich mot te. Hwa is wurse then me? Moni slep hit binimeth me. Nu me is wa thet tu hit wast; ah foryef me nu thet Ich habbe hit itald te. Tha Ich schule wurthe wod, ne schalt tu neauer mare witen hu me stonde."
I'm not going to translate that, because my ME is clunky, but essentially the gist is this: the would-be visitor accuses himself of baseness (who is worse than me?), swears solemn oaths attesting to his suffering, and beseeches the anchorite for forgiveness. Of course--the text goes on--should she grant this forgiveness, she will starting down a treacherous path. We all know how the story goes.
It's funny to be reading a work that's so foreign, in essential respects--an anchoritic guide from the thirteenth century, in this case--and to feel a flash of recognition. Not that I'm personally acquainted with this particular ploy, but it's easy enough, isn't it, to imagine a modern-day suitor using exactly this speech.
In retrospect, I think I have encountered this kind of speechifying in the past. It's annoyingly effective. What it does, obviously, is try to make the seductee (the woman, in this case) feel responsible for the seducer's anguish. And, being a nice person, she'll automatically seek to relieve that anguish. There was this time in Paris, some years ago, when I was walking around by myself at a big outdoor festival, and this guy started talking to me. I told him that I had a boyfriend, and he insisted (repeatedly) that he had no designs, just wanted to spend some time together, maybe have dinner, etc etc. I was increasingly uncomfortable, and said, finally, that I just wanted to be alone, and no thank you, you haven't offended me, but I don't want to have dinner. This was very hard for me to say. Harder still when I saw the blank anger in his eyes. With a huge effort I didn't take it back, and he went away. And I felt guilty. Which made me mad, of course.
So, while I don't think I'll be following most of Ancrene Wisse's advice, I can get behind this particular recommendation. Right on, leoue sustren. Just say no, and don't listen to the excuses.
But there is some good stuff in there, content-wise. Last night I was reading the section in Part 2 where the author warns the anchorites against hearing ungodly speech, particularly the speech of men who come around to, you know, chat. Watch out, it warns, for guys who answer your rebuffs with speeches like the following:
"Ich nalde forte tholie death thenche fulthe toward te" (ant swereth deope athes), "ah that Ich hefde isworen hit, luvien Ich mot te. Hwa is wurse then me? Moni slep hit binimeth me. Nu me is wa thet tu hit wast; ah foryef me nu thet Ich habbe hit itald te. Tha Ich schule wurthe wod, ne schalt tu neauer mare witen hu me stonde."
I'm not going to translate that, because my ME is clunky, but essentially the gist is this: the would-be visitor accuses himself of baseness (who is worse than me?), swears solemn oaths attesting to his suffering, and beseeches the anchorite for forgiveness. Of course--the text goes on--should she grant this forgiveness, she will starting down a treacherous path. We all know how the story goes.
It's funny to be reading a work that's so foreign, in essential respects--an anchoritic guide from the thirteenth century, in this case--and to feel a flash of recognition. Not that I'm personally acquainted with this particular ploy, but it's easy enough, isn't it, to imagine a modern-day suitor using exactly this speech.
In retrospect, I think I have encountered this kind of speechifying in the past. It's annoyingly effective. What it does, obviously, is try to make the seductee (the woman, in this case) feel responsible for the seducer's anguish. And, being a nice person, she'll automatically seek to relieve that anguish. There was this time in Paris, some years ago, when I was walking around by myself at a big outdoor festival, and this guy started talking to me. I told him that I had a boyfriend, and he insisted (repeatedly) that he had no designs, just wanted to spend some time together, maybe have dinner, etc etc. I was increasingly uncomfortable, and said, finally, that I just wanted to be alone, and no thank you, you haven't offended me, but I don't want to have dinner. This was very hard for me to say. Harder still when I saw the blank anger in his eyes. With a huge effort I didn't take it back, and he went away. And I felt guilty. Which made me mad, of course.
So, while I don't think I'll be following most of Ancrene Wisse's advice, I can get behind this particular recommendation. Right on, leoue sustren. Just say no, and don't listen to the excuses.
In Conclusion
One thing that relationships and papers have in common is this: Ending them is much harder than beginning them.
No, I'm not going to talk about the elation and pleasure of starting to write a really good paper. (The analogy breaks down pretty quickly, see.) I'm going to write about conclusions.
In the beginning, the paper can go any old where--especially if, like me, you tend to come up with your "real" arguments mid-draft. But the conclusion is a whole different animal. Wrapping things up in some definitive and comprehensive way requires a kind of certainty that I seldom possess at the draft stage--a problem that may be personal, intellectual, or (the preferred option) rhetorical.
Yes, sometimes I do make gradiose and totalizing claims in my conclusions, and sometimes they sound really good. But sometimes they're just, well, false.
So anyway, I'm thinking about this because I'm trying to finish up (yes, that's right) the conclusion to my dissertation. It is a ghastly process. I refuse to reiterate the details of my individual chapters' arguments. I refuse. So I'm trying to do the whole implications-for-future-research thing, and I think I've got that nailed, but then there's the question of the last sentence. The very last sentence is tripping me up, here. In its current form, it's an absolute monstrosity containing the words "examining," "mechanisms," "highlights," and two separate uses of the word "limitations." I hate it.
On the one hand, the last sentence is what the reader will take away from the whole project--it generates the feel of the work, right, and it's whole after-effect and all that business. The glow.
But, on the other had, who the hell cares.
Okay, that settles it.
Which means that--hey! My dissertation is done.*
(*barring edits. Of course.)
No, I'm not going to talk about the elation and pleasure of starting to write a really good paper. (The analogy breaks down pretty quickly, see.) I'm going to write about conclusions.
In the beginning, the paper can go any old where--especially if, like me, you tend to come up with your "real" arguments mid-draft. But the conclusion is a whole different animal. Wrapping things up in some definitive and comprehensive way requires a kind of certainty that I seldom possess at the draft stage--a problem that may be personal, intellectual, or (the preferred option) rhetorical.
Yes, sometimes I do make gradiose and totalizing claims in my conclusions, and sometimes they sound really good. But sometimes they're just, well, false.
So anyway, I'm thinking about this because I'm trying to finish up (yes, that's right) the conclusion to my dissertation. It is a ghastly process. I refuse to reiterate the details of my individual chapters' arguments. I refuse. So I'm trying to do the whole implications-for-future-research thing, and I think I've got that nailed, but then there's the question of the last sentence. The very last sentence is tripping me up, here. In its current form, it's an absolute monstrosity containing the words "examining," "mechanisms," "highlights," and two separate uses of the word "limitations." I hate it.
On the one hand, the last sentence is what the reader will take away from the whole project--it generates the feel of the work, right, and it's whole after-effect and all that business. The glow.
But, on the other had, who the hell cares.
Okay, that settles it.
Which means that--hey! My dissertation is done.*
(*barring edits. Of course.)
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