20121128.2219

The weather in The City has decided to turn towards winter.  It is not quite there yet; the streets and sidewalks remain clear of snow, if not of waste--rubbish, animal, and human--and the temperatures are such that water does not quite begin to freeze in the open air.  But I find that the cold has begun to affect me even so.

I have long had to struggle with my hands and feet growing cold; as often as not, they feel to me like flexing lumps of ice at the ends of my limbs.  I do not know why; I exercise a fair bit (if not as much as I probably ought), and I move my hands and feet much, which ought to drive blood into them.  Yet even in high summer, I find often that I have cold feet, whether I am frightened or not.  Winter is worse.

20121126.1936

It was with heavy heart that I heard that one of my major graduate school professors, James E. Anderson, passed away.  His obituary is here.

Most of my studies with Prof. Anderson were in older Germanic poetry, the heavily alliterative and allusive verse typified by Beowulf.  While I cannot boast the best of bard-craft, some little skill I seek to deploy in a small and unworthy tribute to a man whose approach to scholarship has informed my own:

Mighty the mind-work he made pupils do,
Many the marks he made on their papers,
And great was the groaning when grades were returned,
For of the fast A, a foe he was ever,
But well could they boast who bore well the yoke
Of learning and lore he would lay upon them
To strengthen as scholars the studious folk.
He pushed and he pressed, that professor full,
Student knowledge-seekers.  Some of them fell.
Others endured and approval found.
Hoarse-voiced and hoar-headed, he looked with joy
On verse-lines of value and vaunted old prose
Made new and modern in mouth and by hand,
Brought again back from book into thought,
Turned over, tested, tried, and found good.
From the Franks Casket to Fafnir he ranged,
From Maldon to Milton, the mighty old-scholar,
Even to Exeter.  The ever-jesting man
Spoke of the centuries with sure-knowing ease,
And we who would know his wisdom could have it
Freely for asking, and full of long joy.
Gone is the good man, gathered away
From pen and from paper and pupils diverse.
Fate ever goes as it must.

20121124.1400

It occurs to me that, weeks after the event, I have not yet commented about my experience at the 2012 South Central Modern Language Association conference in San Antonio, Texas.  My wonderful wife and I both attended, enjoying success with the work we did, and enjoying some time with our families, as well.

My wife was busier than I was on the trip; she presented on the panel I had organized (about which more, below) and chaired the English VI: General Linguistics panel, as well.  The latter saw presentations from local scholars, both of which spoke to issues of linguistic construction and encoding of identity.  One of the presentations showed the relative youth of the presenter's career in academia, but since I am not terribly old in the profession, and I am happy to see people take the risk of and get experience in presenting research, I have no complaints.  Indeed, the presentation touched upon something that I perceive as being worth investigating (not that I will; I have more than enough to occupy my scholarly time as it is without ranging even further outside of my normal fields of study).

The panel with which both of us were concerned was the one which I had organized and managed to push through: Bullshit Studies.  I am well aware of the seemingly facetious nature of proposing such a panel, and several people at the conference (there were quite a few who had heard of the panel and exhibited interest) flat-out asked if the panel was a joke.  While it is true that there was a bit of the tongue-in-cheek about the panel (really, how could there not be?), more than a desire to say "bullshit" repeatedly in an academic conference informed my proposal.  There is legitimate scholarly interest in the phenomenon we label "bullshit," beginning in earnest with the work of Harry G. Frankfurt and continuing on through a number of other scholars, primarily in philosophy.  Consequently, an academic conference panel is an appropriate place to keep engaging the phenomenon--aside from the fairly obvious jokes about academe being itself bullshit, especially the academic humanities.

Perhaps more important a reason is something which I have discussed before: the need for those of us working in the humanities to return to the joy with which we began our work in them.  Too often, we scholars of the humanities get so wrapped up in the minutiae of our work--and of the things we have to do to support the work--that we lose track of the fulfillment that traditionally has been called the chief reward of the work.  Having the opportunity to do the work in a venue that calls for--and even demands--approaching it with a certain irreverent joy strikes me as being of value.  That does not at all mean that the work is not done in earnest and with devotion.  Rather the opposite is true; approaching the work with joy usually results in better work.  Or I find that it is so.

It is fortunate, then, that I take joy in coordinating the research of others, for I am in a position to do so again.  After the Bullshit Studies panel wrapped up, I attended the English I: Old and Middle English panel, hearing several excellent papers about which I wish I had taken better notes than I did.  More to the point, though, is that I was elected to chair the session when the South Central Modern Language Association meets in New Orleans, Louisiana, next year.  While it does mean that I will be unable to present a paper on the panel (conference rules prohibit it, for fairy good reason), it does mean that I am going to have access to another slate of excellent ideas, from which I hope to be able to develop yet other ideas of my own.

Like Tolkien's road, the work goes ever on and on--as I need to stop doing.  Some more of that work needs doing, and with great joy; I should attend to it.

20121122.1235

To my people in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving!

To my people outside the United States, Happy Thursday!

Because I am in the United States, and I am celebrating Thanksgiving, it occurs to me that I ought to be thankful, and I therefore ought to think about that for which I am grateful.  Among those things is that I am in a place where I can take a day to be thankful--and that I can show my gratitude by eating to repletion and taking a nap.  (Really, Thanksgiving does not get enough love in the US, but I think it is one of the better holidays.  Seriously, celebrating by eating and taking a nap is awesome!  Even with cooking and cleanup, it's a lot less stressful than many other holidays.)

Among them also is the fact that I am in a position that has me working, but not in a work that will destroy my body, and a work that serves to help people improve themselves.  Too, it supports my household comfortably, which also merits thankfulness.  And it allows me to do much of what I want to do--for pay.

I am thankful to have been surrounded by so many people who love me so deeply as they do.  And even those people who have hated me have given me much, for which I thank them.

For those problems which I have, I am still thankful.  I am grateful that they are not larger than they are.  And I am grateful that I have such opportunities to make of myself a better person; in that regard, I need all the help I can get.

20121120.1827

Alright, I know I'm doing that thing again where I post a little after I have not posted in a while.  But it'll be good.

On the way home from the New York Aikikai this evening, something happened to me for the second time.  As is my custom, I was reading one of the journals that took forever to get to me; the issue, several months old at this point, is a hefty one, looking more like a book than the periodical that most folks who read on the train read.

Not long before the train emerged from its tunnel into the cool night air of a Brooklyn November, a man tapped me on the shoulder and asked me about my reading.  He seemed genuinely interested in the material, asking several questions that seemed designed to elicit more information from me and following them up with yet more.  It was delightful, really; I enjoy talking about what I read (as those who read my blog no doubt know), and the chance to do so in so public and pedestrian a forum as a moving subway car was most welcome.

I have noted, I think, my desire to (among many other things) be a public intellectual.  Talking literary and historical criticism on a train in Brooklyn qualifies as an instantiation of that desire, I believe.

I mentioned that this was the second time.  The first happened as a good friend, my beloved wife, and I made our way to Brooklyn.  We had gotten onto a train at Herald Square (to which I did not remember you, for which I do not apologize), doing so by way of a platform where, as is not uncommon, a musician was performing...not entirely well.  One of us made a comment about the quality of play, and that comment provoked a response from one of the other straphangers who had gotten onto the train with us.  A discussion about music sprang up, one which shifted slowly (and completely sensibly at the time) to academic work; our friend, my wife, and I all teach college, and the woman who had responded to our earlier comment was fascinated by our talk to one another and to her.

I got her business card, and I hope to have something come of it later on down the line.

In both cases, I was part of a scholarly conversation largely unlooked-for.  Certainly, I was surprised--and pleasantly--on both occasions, and both times, I noticed that the conversation did have an audience.  So I can hope to have done a little bit--with apologies to Horace and Sidney, among others--to teach and to delight and to delight in and through teaching in the world.

20121102.1321

It may be a bit flip of me to make the kind of post that I am making here and now, in New York City after a major storm has passed through and left such devastation as it has.  But there is some value in trying to return to normalcy as quickly as can be done after upheaval--insofar as anything I put on this blog can be called "normal."  And this has been on my mind for a while...

I have written about The Legend of Zelda before (here), and over the past few weeks, I have returned to playing Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (which my beloved wife bought for me for Christmas a while back).  As I did so, enjoying the experience thoroughly (because I have played many of the games in the franchise over quite some time), something else occurred to me that I had not noticed about the game before.  Whether I had simply not paid attention in my earlier stretch of playing the game, or whether I had simply not had enough exposure to the material for the revelation to break upon me, I had not seen that in the characters Greba and Gondo, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword perpetuates racist stereotypes.

Greba and Gondo are a mother and son who live, along with the eponymous Zelda and the protagonist, Link, in Skyloft.  Gondo, the son, is the proprietor of the Scrap Shop, a large stall in the Skyloft bazaar which offers repairs and gear upgrades.  His mother, Greba, largely stays around their home.  The two are the only dark-skinned characters in Skyloft, and their features appear as caricatures reminiscent of American minstrel shows.  In addition to their darkened skins, both display large, flattened noses, much more so than any other characters in Skyloft or elsewhere.  Too, their lips are overly pronounced, bulging and pale against their dark skin.  The depictions evoke racist imagery in the United States, suggesting discriminatory attitudes at work in the game.

In addition, both Greba and Gondo are afforded ungainly, unflattering appearances.  Greba is a hunched figure and bow-legged, a posture hardly indicative of regard for the character on the part of those who created her.  Too, her eyes are covered, and while it is the case that there are other characters in Skyloft whose eyes are not exposed to view, there are professional reasons for their wearing goggles; this is not the case with Greba.  Nor can they be ascribed to age; there are a number of other elderly characters in Skyloft who have no obvious corrective lenses.  If eyes are the windows of the soul, and if characters within a video game can be considered to have some semblance of a soul, Greba's are shuttered, almost as if the house in which the soul ought to dwell is abandoned and falling into disrepair.  And the disrepair is connoted by her attire, as well, which is the least ornate of all female characters in Skyloft; even the demonstrably financially disadvantaged Mallara wears more decorated, nicer clothing than that in which Greba is unvaryingly clad.  None of these things present Greba as particularly valued among the inhabitants of Skyloft, and the positioning of a dark-skinned character in what amounts to abjection by other features of appearance couples denigration with dark skin, a racist trope somewhat shocking to see in a major media release in the early twenty-first century.

Gondo suffers under a similar onus.  Although it would be expected that a character engaged in mechanical labor would display features of physical strength, and Gondo does have the broad shoulders and deep chest that suggest great muscular power, he is otherwise ill-proportioned.  His arms extend almost to his knees, far longer in proportion than the other residents of Skyloft and more evocative of the apes with which dark-skinned persons have been likened by racists across long stretches of time.  Too, like his mother's, Gondo's eyes are kept out of view.  While it could be argued that his work with machines merits eye protection, the covering that occludes his forehead from view is not standard safety equipment.  Rather, it functions as a mask, one that inhibits the full presentation of the character.  There are, in the story of the game, no major revelations which depend on Gondo maintaining some level of secrecy, so keeping his face veiled comes off as an implication that his face is something which should be kept from view, not because of a plot concern, but because it is not worthy of being put on public display.  In him, dark skin becomes associated with ugliness, another long-standing racist trope, and one reinforced by the deplorable state of his clothing.  For while it is the case that his mother's attire is unornate, at least it fits her form and covers her fully.  Gondo gives the impression that he has not been able to afford new clothing for some time; his shirt is obviously too small for him, and his pants, alone among those of male characters in Skyloft, are tight to his legs.  In addition to ugliness, then, poverty is associated with having dark skin in Gondo, and that, too, is a racist stereotype.

Both characters also reenact racist discourse in their occupations.  Greba is introduced as one of a group of women complaining about having to do laundry.* While it is admittedly true that taking care of the wash is an onerous task, it is one from which the female characters with which Greba is initially introduced are able to extricate themselves. Throughout the game, however, Greba is depicted as tending to her son's laundry. She is fixed in a particularly menial role, the only female character so relegated, and the only dark-skinned female character. It is another unhappy association, if not quite as much so as that of her son's work.

Gondo, as has been mentioned, is the proprietor of the Scrap Shop, the very name of which implies it lesser status among the stalls in the bazaar; he deals in scraps, leftovers, cast-offs, and the connection of a dark-skinned character to such things serves to reinforce ideas that the dark-skinned are dependent on the leavings of others, on charity spared from the rubbish heap.  Too, at the Scrap Shop, Gondo deals only in altering the goods produced by others; he makes nothing of his own, only tinkers with what is made by others.  This is markedly distinct from the actions of the light-skinned other vendors in the bazaar, who for the most part provide direct services or actually manufacture products.**  They create, he does not, and because he, the only dark-skinned vendor, does not, being dark-skinned is equated with unoriginality and intellectual dependence.  Neither is a pleasant association, and neither, since tied directly to one of only two dark-skinned characters in the game, speaks well for racial sensitivity on the part of the game's designers.

That there are racist tropes reiterated in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, a major media release and the continuation of a nearly generational series of games, serves as a reminder that racial parity has yet to be achieved.  There is also a warning to take away from it; significant threads of the cultural tapestry are still dyed with discriminatory ideology, and while we may not throw away the blanket because of a few loosened threads, we probably ought to see about cleaning it.

*There is sexism in so strongly associating femininity with clothes-washing; no men are depicted cleaning what they wear.  There is some mitigation of the sexism, however, and discussion of it needs to take place elsewhere.  Maybe it can be another one of my blog posts, or it can be taken up by commentators on this one...

**There is the parallel character in the bazaar of Bertie, who augments potions rather than brewing them himself.  Bertie is very much put upon, however; he is remarkably self-derogatory and clearly the inferior partner in his marriage.  To be parallel to him, then, is not a position of privilege.

20121101.1042

As a new month begins, especially after the events of the last few days here in The City and the surrounding areas, I feel it appropriate to express my gratitude for what I have been given and to let the folks who care about it know that I and mine are well.  For we were among the fortunate; we did not lose power, we had no water come into the apartment except in the ways we wanted it to do so, and we have been fine.  Too, work at the school has been cancelled these last few days, so I have gotten an opportunity to catch up on my sleep (if only I had caught up on other work!).

My thoughts and prayers are with those who have not been so fortunate.

20121027.1814

In a Brookyn backyard on Bedford Avenue,
Some sundry things are secured now.
The legs are lashed on a lit-often grill,
A mower made fast so it will move not.
A storm struggles northward, strains up the coast,
Prompting pleas to be safe from parents and kin.
This answer I offer to all who are worried:
We do what we can to weather the storms
Of rain and of rancor in the realm mortal.
As best as can be, battened are hatches.
We watch now and wait upon weather's pleasure,
Seeking our solace in trust of the Savior.

20121011.0947

I have complained repeatedly about academic journals getting to me late, and the September 2012 CCC did not give me cause to stop; I did not receive it until the first of this month.  I know that I have been reading slowly to only now be discussing it, but I am reading it, and I do find that I have something to say about it--or, for the moment, one article in it.

That article is "Institutional Ethnography as Materialist Framework for Writing Program Research and the Faculty-Staff Work Standpoints Project," by Michelle LaFrance and Melissa Nicolas.  I was immediately drawn to the article by its authorship; I studied under Nicolas for a time, early in my graduate career (I am not so old as the phrasing makes me sound), and I regard the time working under her direction as well spent.  Accordingly, I was interested in seeing what she had been up to, and I read the article she co-authored eagerly as the subway dragged me away from home and to the office.

In the article, LaFrance and Nicolas discuss institutional ethnography (IE), a method for investigating how workplaces form themselves and situate the people who work in them, arguing that it is a valuable means for interrogating institutional practices that are often overlooked.  They outline the ways in which IE works to point out how institutional practices differ for people who perform different functions within an organization; they call it situated variability.  To do so, they give a brief overview of the history of IE and of its undergirding concepts before situating it in relation to already-existing methodologies.  Throughout, they deploy examples from their own experiences within institutions, using them to develop a particular ethos that speaks well to the common audience of the journal, and making the article a particularly effective call to use IE as another tool for those involved in the teaching of writing to look into how the context in which they teach influences the teaching they do.

As good an article as it is, though, there is a point at which I find myself calling the piece into question.  LaFrance and Nicolas comment that they are "drawn to IE because it takes into account this situated variability of experience within institutions, casting individuals as active and interested, mindfully negotiating the competing priorities and material conditions of their work day" (133).  In the comment, they seem to make assumptions about the faculty and staff of an institution, assumptions which many people hope are true but which are not always the case.  For it is not true that all of the participants in an institution are mindful of their work or particularly interested in it.

It has not seldom been my experience that there are people working in schools who are the very models of those types held up by opponents of teachers' unions and public school systems, those who come into the school simply to draw a paycheck and not with the idea of helping students to make their lives better.  I have seen it among the tenured professoriate.  (To be fair, many of them are invested in the development of knowledge--which is an aspect of the university that many among the public fail to recognize as being vitally important to the mission of the academy generally.  But that is another discussion.)  I have seen it among people traditionally classified as lecturers (full-time continuing faculty off of the tenure track).  I have very much seen it among the swelling corps of adjunct and contingent faculty as they scramble among classes and institutions to make enough money to live.  I have seen it among the staff, who do as little as they can get away with.  I have certainly seen it among administration, for whom the institution becomes a gathering of dollars and cents rather than a means to develop and augment good sense.  And I see it among all too many students, who paradoxically strive to be passive in their "educations," waiting to be short-term deposit accounts or pre-paid debit cards in the banking model, with "learning" deposited into them and rapidly spent on "the test."

It is true that such people are not the only ones to be found.  I do not know if they are the majority.  But I know that they are there (O! how I know!).  Something in the impetus LaFrance and Nicolas cite therefore sits ill with me, even as they make quite the case for deploying IE.

I shall have to give it more thought.

Work Cited
LaFrance, Michelle, and Melissa Nicolas. "Institutional Ethnography as Materialist Framework for Writing Program Research and the Faculty-Staff Work Standpoints Project." CCC 64.1 (September 2012): 130-50. Print.

20120927.1520

Among the things I encounter when reading the journals I take are calls for proposals, requests for works to be submitted for presentation and publications periodical and otherwise.  I do not always answer them, as I do not always have it in me to offer what they ask.  But I do try to respond to a number of them, such as that which College Composition and Communication currently has open.

I have been doing a fair bit of thinking about how I am going to respond to it.  As I have done so, it has occurred to me that I am facing a task much like that which I assign to my students in various classes.  Like them, I am facing a general topic and a page-limit (well, really a word-limit, but it works out more or less the same).  Like many of them, I am having some difficulty in generating specific ideas to address in what I hope to submit and see get into print; the general topic being offered is fairly broad, and there are many ways in which it might be addressed.

I suppose that since I am in circumstances similar to those in which my students find themselves (at least regarding the assignments I give them), I ought to apply processes and exercises to my predicament similar to those I exhort them to employ.  It would be good of me to do, certainly; modeling is good pedagogy, and my use of the techniques I recommend accords them an additional degree of ethos.  Too, it will afford me more lived experience with them, which will make it easier for me to discuss them with my classes, and that can hardly hurt the quality of my instruction.*

Even so, some uneasiness attends on the idea.  Discussion of my struggles with the students may well be unproductive--or even harmful.  It is certainly possible that instead of developing empathy and rapport--"You see, folks, I am in the same place, facing the same things, so you can trust that what I tell you about facing them down works"--my expression of difficulty will undermine my authority to address the class from a position of knowledge, that I will present myself as someone not fit to guide them through their own difficulties--"Well, you jerk, if you have trouble, what hope have we got?  And if you're having trouble, what gives you the right to tell me how to do this?"

There is also the potential that I will try the things I have been recommending to my students and find that they do not work.  While I certainly expect that not all techniques work for all people (else why would we need to have more than one technique?), I worry about the implications of experiencing total failure of the tools with which I hope to provide my students.  Would I then be in the position of having to set aside my earlier teaching?  And would that not then give them reason to doubt everything else I give them?  Even though I do want them to be able to question that with which they are confronted, to be able to satisfy themselves of its validity, I fear the institutional ramifications that might arise.  Certainly, were I to admit openly that I have been in error in my instruction, the students would have ground to contest every grade I issue and every assignment I offer.

The consequences I imagine are, perhaps, a bit excessive.  They do, after all, assume that the students will pay attention to me in a way that will allow them to enforce those consequences upon me, and for all that I struggle to engage my students in the classroom, I am not convinced that they pay me much mind outside of it--and some do not do so within it, more's the pity.  Too, I have discussed this very issue before, and as yet, nothing bad has come of it.  But I remain conflicted as to how much I ought to let the students see of how I put my own work together--especially at the beginning, when I am having trouble focusing on a single line of argument.

*Those of you who are looking at me for my teaching style and techniques (and I know that there are some of you out there, even if you do not announce yourselves), take note that I worry about them even in my personal life, and that I discuss them openly in a forum which invites comment and critique.  And I do hope to receive some of each.