Allow Me to Quote You a Quotation...

I have something that's been bothering me for while. I used to not care, but suddenly I developed a new grammar twitch that hasn't gone away. It drives me up the wall when people misuse 'quote' and 'quotation'. Here's the difference:

--QUOTE: a verb, TO QUOTE. "He quotes random movie lines constantly."
--QUOTATION: a noun. "He loves movie quotations."

I suppose some of the confusion enters in from a lot of words that are both nouns and verbs. (Example: DRINK. He drinks. He takes a drink.) Also, you can call in for "a quote" on some service (an estimate, if you will)--call in for an insurance quote! So really, it's no wonder that people just use "quote" when they mean the noun "quotation". I really shouldn't get all bent out of shape on it.

But none of us can truly know why the gods decide which things will drive us crazy. And right now, those that misuse quote-quotation are on that list.

I was doing so well!

I was posting furiously, and then...a trickle. Maybe I put too much pressure on myself to post things of real substance, be they a poem I wrote on a whim because I was thinking about how much I disliked walking home alone at night and feeling cranky about it or my paper that I proudly turned in last week.

Maybe I shouldn't put so much pressure on the quality of my posts--I want them to be interesting reflections of my life as a grad student. I also want to post everyday (except maybe weekends, due to limited internet access). So I think there just have to be some days where I post mediocre. And I can be okay with mediocrity, as long as you, my dear readers, don't mind it.

I like posting things of substance. But let's be honest: as busy as I am and as often as I would like to post, posting something interesting and wonderfully written each day is too lofty of a goal. Now posting everyday, that's a good start. Making myself write and reflect each day, also a good aspiration. I like how blogging is helping me be a better writer, so I just need to quit worrying about it and write. It won't always be good, but I'll be doing it (the writing, that is).

Poem: Night-Women

Why is it that the
Shadowy night holds
No pain for the men with their strong arms
And fast legs.

They tell us to tread carefully,
Carry our mace and whistles
Never go alone, they warn.
The bad men will find you--
(Though if they do, it's probably your fault anyway)

So we slink, paranoid,
Conscious of our weak arms
And slow legs.
Conscious of our vulnerability.
We start at every leaf fall
And panic at the step behind

We could be strong, you know.
We could be the Night-Women,
Prowling and powerful
Gliding and flying
Free from our socially-
Constructed fears
(And they would not
Control us.)

Perhaps, then, the little boys would be warned of Us;
Instead of teaching our girls fear,
We would tell them Tales of the Night-Women
Who seized the rule of the Twilight-mists
And transformed it into
A place of joy, and of beauty

Book Review Essay: Lindsay Waters' Enemies of Promise

Assignment: An eight- to ten-page critical book review. Write an essay, for an audience of other graduate students/teachers of literature, that unpacks a problem, then talk about how the book you've read speaks to that problem (but doesn't necessarily need to solve it).

My book: Enemies of Promise: Publishing, Perishing, and the Eclipse of Scholarship by Lindsay Waters (Prickly Paradigm Press: 2004)

Stifling New Growth in Academia:
Enemies of Promise

A tremor is going through academia, a pang felt mainly in the humanities: the boding feeling that something is very wrong with our current system and needs to be put aright so universities may flourish with ideas once more. It’s enough to make a young academic break out in cold sweats and cross herself lest the demons prevent her access to the ivory tower. For one seeking to enter the hallowed halls as a Ph.D. in English, the increased demands of gaining tenure (and job security) and the decreased availability of tenured positions are compelling reasons for one to flee to the corporate world. The call to participate in literary studies—or any of the humanities—is not for the faint of heart.

As an English M.A. student looking to also pursue a Ph.D., I have already begun to feel the pressures of the academic life. Tenured positions—even at smaller universities—are often contingent on receiving a doctoral degree from a highly ranked institution with a well-established, reputable English program. However, in order to be accepted to one such Ph.D. program, I need to have written papers for publication and conferences, attended conferences, and often be willing to teach as an underpaid GA. If I were so lucky as to be hired into a tenure-track position with my newly minted Ph.D., I would still have to undergo the tenure process: publishing, publishing, and publishing. Not only would I need to be published to get into my first choice Ph.D. program, but I would need to continue publishing to be hired and eventually promoted at a university lest I be banished to the fringes of adjunct-hood. Based on a market economy where one provides goods for another to buy, the hiring and promotion system in the humanities is ultimately self-destructive and stifling. Academics no longer can pursue knowledge for the joy of learning; we must pursue knowledge for the drudgery of publishing something that most likely will go unread and unloved by any, even ourselves.

The market approach to academics is one that is wreaking havoc on the once flourishing world of the humanities. We are in the business of truth and truth is not a tangible product that college presidents and deans can sell. While the engineering and science disciplines are able to bring in research funding each year and producing advances in technology and patents that they can sell, administrators and students alike are starting to turn a critical eye to the humanities and wondering what our purpose is, besides teaching freshman composition. The pressures of the job market cause students to shy away from literature: a degree in English landed me a underpaid secretary position at the university, the human resources staff counting my English degree as clerical experience. Whereas a student with an undergraduate degree in engineering usually has a job lined up before they even graduate, the English major faces uncertain job prospects. The only way to get paid to do what I love to do—study and teach literature—was to pursue higher education. But there, my prospects are still not shining, and I will have to overcome obstacles and learn to navigate the system itself in order to have a chance at success.

With genuine concern and stinging criticism, Lindsay Waters addresses one symptom of the problems plaguing academia and the humanities—publication—in his lively and riveting book Enemies of Promise: Publishing, Perishing, and the Eclipse of Scholarship. Like Robert Scholes, who argues in The Rise and Fall of English that English must discover itself as a discipline or meet the fate of its predecessors Rhetoric and Oratory, and Terry Eagleton, who in After Theory defends the current need for theory over the protests of those who would declare its end, Waters too recognizes the urgent need for change in the humanities. He asserts that the current application of the market economy within the academy is harmful, stifling, and self-destructive to the quest for truth, declaring, “It is harder for the truth to submit to the market than for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle” (9).

Waters, the Executive Editor for the Humanities at Harvard University Press, is an insider to the publication system, and he feels the urgent need to be one of the critical voices: “I say it’s upon the shoulders of the insiders that the duty to speak up falls first” (4). He begins his work with a warning that the end of the era of high production from university presses is near. He then asks, “What good are books? What are publications for?” (3). He explains his own interest in books:

The reason I am here, suppliant before you, is my immoderate love of books, which I love nearly as much as I love people. If this be fetishism or idolatry, I am guilty. We may be—as Marshall McLuhan suggested years ago—collectively on the eve of exiting from the time when the book was central to human flourishing. We owe it to ourselves, then to figure out what it was we most valued about the book so we can try to preserve it. (3-4)

Books matter. We in literary studies understand this; we devote our time and energies to books. We read books, we love books, we teach books, we seek to understand books. We write books about our most beloved books, and we read what others have to say about them. Books show our achievements; they can be the happy products of our studies and passions. However, books and publications have become the currency of academia as markers of achievement and paths to promotion. Waters points out that the problem of over-publication is an academic cooking of the books: “My guess, then, is that the phony profits of Enron are like the false achievements of academia, represented by mountains of unloved and unread publications” (7).

If no one is actually reading these books, then why are they still being published? The trouble lies in the blending of capitalism and intellectualism, the application of the market economy to the marketplace of ideas. Waters wryly comments: “I think that we scholars and publishers have allowed the moneychangers to enter the temple” (5). In the post-World War II era, funding suddenly poured into colleges to fund research and technological advances, and the structure of the university administration changed to manage the influx of cash. Administrators and deans began to put pressure on university publishing houses to produce more, earn more, and do more and began raising the bar on standards of promotion and tenure. Production and profit, not scholarship, became a driving force in the academy. Waters remarks, “Modern, highly sophisticated accounting methods have been brought to bear on the work of the scholarly community and are having the unintended consequence of hollowing out the work of the academy” (8).

Capitalism and academia do not work well with one another if the goal of academics is the pursuit of truth and the examination of ideas. The two cannot co-exist in the same system if we stand by the traditional role of scholars as social critics, slightly out of step with their society. (Eagleton too makes a similar argument about the loss of the power of cultural critique as scholarship and pop culture begin to merge). “The so-called free market—which is anything but free—is not a concept that should be considered the ultimate framework for the free play of ideas” Waters maintains (9). As the humanities cannot offer up profit-making patents and advances in science and medicine, publication becomes the mark of achievement in the market-driven university—to the detriment of both books and the study of literature.

Thus, as the humanities are required to produce more, then scholars must find “new” things to write about. Suddenly, fashion is introduced to literary studies: if you have an interest in the DWMs (Dead White Males) of years past, it had better be because you are examining their possible homosexual tendencies or the hidden eroticism of their work, even if none exists. Terry Eagleton, in After Theory, sums up the current trends in literary scholarship:

On the wilder shores of academia, an interest in French philosophy has given way to a fascination with French kissing. In some cultural circles, the politics of masturbation exert far more fascination than the politics of the Middle East. Socialism has lost out to sado-masochism. Among students of culture, the body is an immensely fashionable topic, but it is usually the erotic body, not the famished one. There is a keen interest in coupling bodies, but not in labouring ones. Quietly-spoken middle-class students huddle diligently in libraries, at work on sensationalist subjects like vampirism and eye-gouging, cyborgs and porno movies. (2-3)

Eagleton is obviously critical of these new fashionable approaches that Waters would assert are a product of the application of capitalism to the university system. It becomes a world where anything goes, and submitting an article that is racy and lurid (with a clever and catchy title) rather than a carefully thought out and contemplative work is a quick way to get published and add lines to one’s CV. Those outside literary studies look at the titles of papers presented at an MLA conference and wonder what those crazy kids are up to and how we are able defend what we do. Robert Scholes would argue that they have every right to demand that we do so.

As a woman entering academia, I often am asked if I’m planning to go into women’s studies or if I want to be a feminist or gender critic—that’s the fashionable thing for women to do in literature (and the humanities as a whole) after all. As a woman, I should be looking for signs of the oppression of women in all texts, or seeking feminist interpretations—even when they are not the most interesting parts of a work of literature. It’s intellectually worthwhile to look at the issue of motherhood in Shelley’s Frankenstein; examining the possible lesbian aspects of the work—because Shelley’s mother may have a lesbian—is not. Feminism and feminist readings can be extremely fascinating and bear important cultural implications, but I don’t like feeling forced into an interpretive mode simply because of my gender. I want to be able to study what I want to study, for the sake of knowledge and the joy of learning.

But let’s be practical here. As a professor has pointed out to me recently, you’ve got to think about scholarship in terms of publication. Is studying Tolkien’s hobbit-heroes likely to get me published? Quite possibly not, at least not in a reputable journal. Will exploring the possibility that Jane Austen was a lesbian and that her work was all about women desiring one another earn me a spot at a conference? More likely, considering the sensationalist nature of such a topic. However, is it true scholarship? I think not, especially if it is born out of the desire to earn a coveted publication that will grant assurance of tenure and promotion. Waters declares, “We have entered the Twilight Zone of academic research, and now the demands for productivity are leading to the production of much more nonsense” (22).

Another result of allowing capitalism to be the gatekeeper of the ivory tower is the increasing compartmentalization of ideas and concentrations. Suddenly instead of studying English, I’m forced to choose a specialization in a specific area. African American Studies are separated from Southern Literature and the two no longer speak, though they might have much to offer one another. And we should forget about incorporating History, Literature, and Philosophy—heaven forbid they intermingle. The humanities are slowly being divided and conquered, split into squabbling groups who only look at the small picture. We cannot critique one another because they are outside our field of specialization. By focusing on the small picture, ideas have stopped trickling out of universities; everyone complains that there is nothing new to say. As someone who’s interested in a wide range of ideas, subjects, and areas of study, the specialization approach is stifling and frustrating. I want to study what I love and love what I study, and I want the freedom to look at a range of subjects and ideas and allow them to illuminate each other. One of the achievements of literary theory has been to prove the New Critics wrong—literature does not occur in isolation. Why should scholarship be any different?

Another problem stemming from the emphasis placed on publication is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the new academics to find a place among the tenured faculty at a university. My fellow graduate students speak with a note of despair in their joking tones about being forever an adjunct or the possibility of obtaining a tenure-track position. “The academic life is a calling, not a job” Waters states, and we’re all certainly not here for the lucrative salary, but we’d still like to have bread for our stomachs and a roof over our heads. However, a production-based tenure system creates a form of censorship, according to Waters. A generation gap has formed between the old and the young, and the old are blocking progress and refusing to lend a helping hand. They assist in increasing the demands for tenure and promotion that prevent young professors from moving up. A form of censorship has emerged within the academy, linked to the increase in publishing. Waters asks, “Why does the rise in demands for productivity come along with a seeming prohibition upon innovation?” (53). He blames it on the reluctance of individual scholars to be critical, to take a stand for any idea. He blames it on Last Men (as he terms them) like Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish who laud the end of inquiry and triumphantly proclaim the death of theory. (Interestingly, Scholes and Eagleton also argue against Rorty and Fish). This becomes a form of censorship to young academics: “The motto over the door of this academy would best be Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate [Renounce all hope you who enter]. No wonder the young who aspire to scholarly careers are playing it safe or abandoning ship” (66). Waters calls the approach of the Last Men like Fish timidity masquerading as boldness:

And so narrow-minded professionalism rules the roost, because the God of Small Minds loves a blinkered intelligence that flatters itself in its timidity about dangerous ideas by telling itself that ideas have no consequences. It all adds up a defense of the status quo. You have to grant the captains of the industry this: They do not conceal their animosity to ideas, to the foreign, to the new, to change. (67)

You have to hand it to Waters; he is brilliant writer who is able to deliver stinging criticism in a way that makes aspiring academics like me raise a fist in the air and shout “hoorah!”.

Waters’ goal is to point out the damage that both the market-driven publication systems and the attitudes of critics have done to the free play of ideas and the growth of scholarship in the universities. His solution to these problems is for us to return to prizing books, not hurrying along their end as Fish would have us do. Enemies of Promise is a call for the humanities to come together, take back their own from college administrators and journal editors. Like Scholes, Waters asserts that we need to explain our purpose; we need to become a true discipline. “We have to embrace art once again and show how the interaction of readers, viewers, and listeners can precipitate the sorts of experiences that allow our souls to spring forth into momentary glory” (86-7). Quality, not quantity, needs to be the goal of publications.

Waters seeks to provide hope and to encourage his readers to strive for change in the humanities, to save scholarship from the timid and the mundane. This is a matter of utmost importance to fledgling academics and tenured professors alike, and is a concern expressed in multiple pages written by numerous scholars who don’t want to see our profession and our disciplines die away or be reduced to arguing the “small stuff”. Waters is another iteration of the truly bold—such as Scholes and Eagleton—who are sounding the call to fight the Last Men and revive scholarship. Waters may not give a plan, exactly, but his words are strong and stirring and give me hope that my path into the academy is not doomed, though it may be lined with pitfalls and barriers along the way. He tries to shine a light into the darkness and divert humanities from its self-destructive course and rally academics young and old alike in the fight to save the promise of the future.

Random Post--What's Going On!

For my readers who enjoy the normal stream of grammar and literature related posts, I hate to disappoint you, but I'm just posting about what's going on with me today!

• I'm running in the Ozark Race for the Cure. I'll be 5K runner with a friend and fellow runner, so it should be loads of fun--plus there's always free stuff. Incidentally, if you'd like to donate some money to Komen, click here: I'd like to have some sponsors! (I also shamelessly e-mailed some of you...)
• I'll be teaching classes for the Little Mountain Bindery (LMB) this summer. I've been working for the owner of LMB on Saturdays, and she wanted me to teach some courses for her, so there will be three offered! Click here to see the class calendar.
• Classes are going well, but I really need to quit procrastinating and get some stuff done. Luckily, my Professing Literature professor moved the deadline of one of our assignments, so I can concentrate on my conference paper more thoroughly. Whew!
• I'm eating sushi today. I know you're jealous.
  

When Speaking In Public: A Short How-To

When one has a public speaking engagement--be it a conference presentation, a class assignment, or anything planned--one should be prepared. Here are some tips from the position of What Not to Do When Speaking in Public.

• Try to dress up, even if it's just tucking in your shirt. Nobody likes looking at someone who looks like they just got out of bed. Take some pride in yourself--it'll boost your self confidence! And especially if you are a graduate student planning to make academia your career, you need to get into the habit of attiring appropriately for conferences, etc.
  
• Actually practice your presentation, unless you've done 1,000 presentations before...then you don't need my advice, and you'll probably do it anyway.
• When speaking, stand. Don't plop down in a chair--it's hard for people in the back of a room to see you if you sit down. If you need something between you and your audience, make use of the podium.
  
• Notes are good and necessary; relying on your notes entirely shows lack of preparation. So prepare!
• Eye contact helps engage the audience. We are not out to get you. We are your friends and wish to hear what you have to say. By making eye-contact, you ensure that we remain engaged and feel connected to what you are saying. No body wants to be bored, believe me.
• And finally, do not conclude with a hasty "That's all!" and tromp off. It's not professional, and it shows a lack of care--you simply "had to get it done and over with".

I write these tips because I'm sick of enduring dull, mindless, horribly presented class presentations. I'm not expecting greatness, but for people who are entering (presumably) into the world of academia, class presentations should serve as preparation for entering a job where conferences are expected, as is presenting to peers or simply students (teaching). I'm not the world's greatest public speaker, but I certainly managed to pick up a thing or two through my years in college (and in my required public speaking course), and somehow figured these things out.

It's the Most Wonderful Time...

It's one of my favorite times of year, next to the fall season and getting to buy new office supplies (I love shopping for a new planner! Oh, nice Sharpies...). It's the time when I get to "shop" for classes for the upcoming semester.

I think I'm going to take a deep breath and enroll in two courses for the fall. Possibly foolish, but that's what dropping is for, right? Right?

One class is one I've intended to take since Dr. Bernhard Jackson told me about it--Introduction to Graduate Studies. It's a course that would introduce me to some of the fundamentals of the profession--i.e. writing a bibliography, creating a proposal, conference stuff, etc. Sounds both useful and fun, and I adore Emily as a professor. (I learned so much in her course last semester).

The second is a seminar titled "The American Picaresque". Intriguing, I thought to myself. But what does it mean? Well, first I shot off an e-mail to the professor listed for the course, assuming he wouldn't mind answering a polite inquiry into the course. Then I googled the phrase...and what should pop up as the very first page but a course description for a course taught in Germany...by a Dr. Michael Augspurger! There might be a lot of Augspurgers in the world, but this has got to be the one I know that was a teacher at UCA and husband of another great and wonderful person, Dr. Jane Simenson. (For one, I know that he taught in Germany).

I think the signs point to me taking the class, especially if does involve some of the same texts that Dr. Augspurger taught in his course. (I'm still intrigued and happy that I was struck by such an odd coincidence).

Two courses?!? Am I nuts? Quite possibly...but I bet I'll love it all the same! (Especially if I make good use of my summer and get a handle on the reading for both courses...)

Non-Fiction Lesson Plan: Michael Pollan

I adore Michael Pollan. I think he's witty and a smart writer--and I've always enjoyed his approach to the problems he tackles in writing. So if I were to teach a non-fiction lesson, I'd probably teach one of his essays. In fact, I selected "Why Mow" from his book Second Nature because I thought it would be a good one to give students. (If you have a chance, check out any of Michael Pollan's books--he also puts a lot of it up on his website: http://www.michaelpollan.com/)


*****************************

Jenn Miller

Professing Literature

David Jolliffe

March 28, 2007

Nonfiction Lesson Plan: Michael Pollan, “Why Mow”

Reading Journal: Before reading Pollan’s essay, “Why Mow[1]”, have the students respond briefly (a few sentences) to the following questions: Do you (or your parents) have a front lawn? Is there a specific purpose for your lawn? Do you know anyone without one?

After reading the essay, have the students respond: Does Pollan cause you to think differently about lawns? Why or why not? Do you think lawns are related to being American and our democratic ideology? Why or why not?

Focus: Pollan says, “Every few years a controversy erupts in some suburban community over the failure of a homeowner to mow his lawn…That subtle yet unmistakable frontier, where the crew-cut lawn rubs up against the shaggy one, is enough to disturb the peace of an entire neighborhood; it is a scar on the face of suburbia, an intolerable hint of trouble in paradise” (67).

Provide a lawn case study to students. Example: Gene Hatfield, an artist in Conway, Arkansas, and a former UCA art professor was cited by the City of Conway for violation of a lawn ordinance—in other words, for putting his art out in his front yard instead of maintaining a lawn. The local art community, comprised mainly of UCA art students, took up the cause, declaring the citation an act of an overly controlling government, stifling the expression of art and violating free speech. Eventually, Hatfield and the city came to a truce; he cleaned up his yard and paid a reduced fine, but was allowed to leave some art on display in his yard.

In light of Pollan’s essay, have the students take a moment to respond to this case study. Is the city justified in its treatment of Hatfield, an artist and homeowner? Allow the students to share their responses.

Purpose: To demonstrate the ways a nonfiction essay can give a reader insight into cultural or political issues by examining the traits of an essay—the way an essay can take something as seemingly mundane as lawns and turn it into an examination of American culture.

Overview: We’ll first examine the traits of an essay (defining the genre). Then we’ll look at some of these traits in Pollan’s essay and begin thinking about the upcoming essay assignment.

Business: Do class business here.

Lecture: Discuss features of an essay (as opposed to more structured forms of writing that students are used to): the impetus (jumping point), the organization, the interrogation of knowledge, the narrative persona, digressions, and use of quotations. Students are used to the idea that writing should have a formal pattern (i.e. introduction, body—with three main points—and conclusion), so showing the essay form in opposition may be helpful.

After reviewing the traits of an essay, return back to Pollan and have the students pull these traits from his text. For example, ask the students to write down what they believe the impetus is (lawns/mowing) and then call on a few students to answer. Other questions: Name one adjective that would describe Pollan’s narrative persona. Give one example of where Pollan uses digressions. How does Pollan use quotations? (direct or implied—the first sentence is an allusion to Donne’s “No man is an island”). Does Pollan’s essay strike you as very organized or structured? What is Pollan trying to get at about lawns and American politics/culture? This will hopefully lead to a structured, useful discussion time.

Closure: This lesson is one out of a series in preparation for students to write an essay of their own. For next time, students will brainstorm some starting blocks or an impetus to write an essay (Pollan begins with mowing and ends up examining the cultural implications of lawns). Of course the impetus is only useful in that it allows the writer to wrestle with a deeper idea, so the students will come up with at least three possible jumping points and the idea they wish to explore from that jumping point. (This will allow for feedback on their writing ideas.)

---

[1] “Why Mow”—excerpt from Second Nature by Michael Pollan, New York: Dell Publishing, 1991.

Grad Blues

I chose to turn down an assistantship to the university I currently attend and opted instead to work full-time (for the university) and take advantage of the tuition discount. My reasoning was that I'd be able to clear out my debt (something I've almost accomplished) and save money for when I go to PhD school. It was a good plan, and I still think it's the right one.

However, the next group of my friends are starting to get their acceptance letters and offers of assistantship from various universities. Here I feel the pang--again--that I'm not a full-time student and am not on assistantship. I'm not a part of the English MA student community here because while I have classes with some very nice people that I talk to on a semi-regular basis, I don't share an office with them, I don't see them everyday, and I don't have the same problems as they do. I'm not teaching, and I miss that. I'm not in school full time, and I miss that too.

While I still feel like I'm on the right path, I'm starting to wonder if I maybe should have just taken the risk and jumped into the assistantship, even if it meant putting me further into debt instead of allowing me to extract myself. I'm still not sure. I think it may have been a situation of my being happier for present, but ultimately more miserable in the future, as I faced insurmountable challenges...

Basically, I'm jealous of all my friends who are getting to take the path I chose not to take. It's as simple as that.

The Homeworks

Before May 3rd, I must accomplish the following things:
--8-10 page book review (April 4th)
--Annotated syllabus (April 11th)
--10 page conference paper (April 12th)
--15-25 page final paper (May 3rd)

This isn't counting all of the reading assignments to be accomplished within that same time frame.

Whew, it's going to be a busy month.

Knitting! (and non-grumbly post)

I promised Katie that I would post a picture of Rory playing with her cat toys, so here she is:















She's so happy, with her wonderful knit mice--and she almost likes them as much as her purple bear!

Thanks again, Katie, for the wonderful color swap package.

*Grumble*

In continuation of my lazy Spring Break posts, I give you a gripe:

I have to read The Political Unconscious by Fredric Jameson. Yes, Professor Fredric Jameson, the winner of a Bad Writing Contest. He's got some good ideas, but his writing is rough to get through. To make it worse, I know I need to have some familiarity with the book in order to write a good paper for my class. I should have read it weeks ago, but put it off in favor of other homework.

I don't want to read it, but I must. And I will be a stronger woman for it.

Um, yeah...

I'm on "spring break" this week, which means I have an excuse to a little lazier than normal. Which also means I'm going to deviate slightly from the usual posts and just chatter.

I thought about writing on Terry Eagleton's fantastic book, After Theory...but I'll do that another day. It was an interesting read, though, and much more interesting than a theory book has a right to be. (He makes several cutting remarks about the current US Administration, which is both entertaining and to the point). I think I'm going to order his book Literary Theory and hope it teaches me more than my goofy class.

I've been reading Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed, which will eventually become fodder for the 10-page conference paper presentation and the subsequent 15-25 final paper. I think I know what I'm going to be talking about too, so that's exciting--luckily the book easily accepts a Marxist interpretation. I'll talk more about that another day too.

I'm proud that I've managed to post fairly regularly. I've also noticed, like Donna, blogging helps my writing. It's getting easier to phrase things quickly, concisely, and interestingly (I hope). It's the practice of simply writing something everyday, I believe, that is helping me really tap into my abilities. So far, so good.

Don't Write the Eulogy Yet...

I attempted to type out an comment in response to ADAllen's perceptive and interesting post, "The Death of Denotation?", which Blogger promptly ate. (Boo.) However, it got me to thinking even more, so I decided to create a post for my own site here about what I thought. (ADAllen and I differ slightly, I believe, on our respective approaches to language and communication, which leads us to some great conversations.)

She hopes that the death of denotation (the "dictionary" definition of a word) would signal a time where "each individual is responsible for making meaning", leading to an improvement of us as communicators. I agree with much of what she says, but I also have some problems. For one, language doesn't occur in isolation--it requires a group and community to use words and agree about what they denote. Denotation is, often, the meaning that a community of speakers/listeners have determined to be the meaning of a word.

Connotation occurs--in ways that philosophers like de Saussure, Bakhtin, and Derrida examined--when an utterance refers to other utterances in some way; it recalls the uses of language and lends new meaning to an utterance (interdiscurvisity and intertextuality). And understandings of meaning differ from individual to individual. But the word must still roughly mean the same thing from speaker to speaker for communication to take place--denotation must still exist.

Perhaps the perceived death of denotation comes with an increasing awareness of the interplay between denotation and connotation. Because we are able to think about language abstractly as systems of signs and examine the implications of certain uses of languages, this leads us to believe that denotation no longer exists. However, I have to point back to my assertion that language is not an individual making meaning--meaning is determined within a community of at least two, with a speaker creating an utterance and a listener receiving it and determining meaning based off of past experiences with other utterances. Meaning is not made in isolation; it requires the participation of others, the participation of past, present, and future listeners and speakers.

And ADAllen asserts at the end of her post that we do still need denotation because we need that neutral ground in language. (Though, many would argue that no language is neutral). Basically it ends up that no language is truly neutral because it the interdiscursive nature of text, nor is it purely connotative because meaning is made by a community. Meaning is both outside the individual and inside the individual simultaneously.

See now? I ended up disagreeing with ADAllen, coming around to her side, and then disagreeing with her again. Language is a slippery, tricky idea, (that somehow needs to be concrete) which is why so many philosophers and theorists are concerned with its use.

Response Paper: Elaine Showalter's Teaching Literature

One of our assignments for Professing Literature is to write a 1-2 page response paper to a chapter of an assigned reading and then read it aloud in class. My response paper was over Elaine Showalter's Teaching Literature. Showalter is a feminist critic who teaches at Princeton and wrote this mediocre guide to teaching literature at the college level. Here's my response to Chapter 9 of the book, "Teaching Dangerous Subjects".

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Jenn Miller
Professing Literature
March 14, 2007

Response Paper to Showalter, Chapter 9

I have to admit that Showalter seduced me with the titles of Chapter 9 and 10: “Teaching Dangerous Subjects” and “Teaching Literature in Dark Times”. I was intrigued by the words “dangerous” and “dark times” which brought forth images of the Mighty English Professor, with her cape and superpowers making the world safe for literature everywhere. Showalter seemed to demand that we view ourselves as guardians of volatile knowledge and shining lights in times of dark. It is rather romantic stuff. But is that what we are, really?

I found myself both nodding and knitting my brow in consternation when I read these chapters. For one, she seemed to offer little of use besides vagaries (“underwhelming” returned again this week). Then the issue of suicide: my initial impulse was to say: hey, we’re not here to coddle students, nor are we here to be their counselors—perhaps cold-blooded, but I’m not a therapist—we’re here to teach literature. But then another thought occurred to me: we’re always going on about how literature is deeply connected to real life, and issues such as suicide and violence and sex are issues of real life that are often found in literature. Should we not expect our students to be affected by finding them in class assignments? And wouldn’t we want our students to feel they could approach us for help in their personal lives?

However, I’m still not sure that the English classroom is the place to teach topics such as suicide awareness—I remain unconvinced of the efficacy of a one-page sheet on suicide prevention—but it could be a place for students to deal with such issues. I’ve often used literature to work my way through personal problems, and I believe that I should provide the opportunity for my students to do the same. I want my students to trust me, but not feel that I’m leading a seminar on life issues—after all, I still have to teach English.

Then there’s the “other” issues, you know the things like violence, sexual language, and race. I wanted to point out to Showalter that you never know how students will react. You can assign an essay that you think will cause students to examine their own perspectives and they won’t even blink (or they’ll miss the point entirely), or you can plan to talk about a seemingly mundane short story that sparks massive controversy. You just never know; at least this was my experience.

This is important stuff—and one reason that I shied away from teaching high school. I wanted at least the perceived sense of having more control over the content of my courses, and that meant teaching sensitive material that is often censored in a high school curriculum. In the same light that giving students a space to deal with personal issues is necessary in the English classroom, then perhaps challenging their perceptions (in a constructive manner) is also a part of our role as English teachers. Teaching from a comfortable zone, staying with the “easy” topics, and avoiding sensitive material will do nothing to help students face a world that will constantly press them with uncomfortable ideas.

But how do we do it? Here’s where Showalter, again, lets us down. For example, Showalter points out that she believes “the professor’s behavior and tone are crucial in shaping students’ attitudes toward sexual language. If we are embarrassed, they will be embarrassed. If we are salacious, they will leer” (129). True, very true, but how? Instead of offering (much) practical advice on how, she challenges us not to be wimps—easy to say when you’re tenured and can easily maintain romantic notions of teacherhood from your dratted ivory tower. How are we to navigate these issues in our classrooms? Avoidance should be avoided, but it’s difficult to tread carefully when you never know how students will respond. Do we simply take a stab in the dark, and hope that we don’t get shoved out? Perhaps “dangerous subjects” are so because they pose a threat to ourselves as teachers as we attempt to guide our students through them.

"Mistakes Were Made"

I'm sure we've all seen the news about the firing of the prosecutors, which may have been politically motivated. Alberto Gonzales is quoted as saying "I acknowledge that mistakes were made here".

I can't help it; when I see phrases like this, I just want to shred them, deconstruct them, and look at what is going on underneath. He starts with "I acknowledge" which implies that he wants to admit something. It's an active phrase, the subject "I" clearly doing the acknowledging. However, acknowledge implies recognition or the revelation of something previously unknown. It's not admitting--admitting would mean that he was hiding something--it's a realization about a situation.

The "I acknowledge" is countered by the next part: "mistakes were made". "Mistakes were made" is a passive phrase. There is no mention of who made the mistakes. It's a shifty phrase. It's evasive; it's an attempt to appease those who might be out for Gonzales' head. The mistakes were not made by anyone in particular, after all, they were simply made.

Together "I acknowledge that mistakes were made" had a double meaning. It's like he's casting the glamour of taking responsibility without actually doing so. It appears that he's attempting to calm those who are shouting "fraud" without attempting to point out how the mistakes were made or on whose discretion.

The word "here" is an interesting touch. "Here" is one of those directional words that only have meaning in context of the speaker. Is "here" a physical location that Gonzales points to during the utterance? Or is it a figurative "here" that seeks to give the utterance immediacy and accessibility--or serves to cut off those who are not "here" because they are "there" (at least in terms of the speaker). After all if I'm here, you must be there. If it's meant to cut out those that are outside the "here", then the whole utterance speaks a language of hiding, doubleness, and evasion.

A reader or listener who receives this utterance might be vaguely troubled, but not know why. After all, doesn't it seem like Gonzales is recognizing that something wrong happened? But in reality, he does no such thing.

The moral of the story: Don't use passive language--use the active voice in writing and speaking. Unless you're a shifty politician backed into a corner. Then you daily rely upon the passive voice to cover your ass.

Those Damn Commies

My theory class, if you've talked to me recently, has been a Marxism class. I'm fine with Marxism; it's interesting, and it certainly has valid points for both interpreting literature and living in society. I'd even go so far as to say that I have Marxist leanings, or at least am sympathetic toward the Marxist viewpoint.

However, when I signed up for a theory class, I expected to be schooled in theory (especially after my adviser and course instructor snidely remarked that any undergraduate theory class I could have taken would be sorely inadequate for my graduate career). However, in my graduate theory class, we've done a whirlwind tour of the "other" theories: New Criticism, psychoanalytic theory, feminism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, etc--one day per theory, and postcoloinalism and feminism were lumped together in the same day. And we have read no primary texts, simply 10-page summaries of the major theoretical notions. Then we settled into a several week exploration of Marxism, the theory that subsumes and consumes and IS all other theories.

However, our class is not supposed to be a class on Marxism, and my professor has a clear Marxist agenda. The kicker is that my undergraduate (inferior) theory class has this class beat with a giant stick. You see, in my undergraduate class, we read all sorts of primary texts, starting with Plato's Republic (and it's attack on poets), catching theorists such as Aristotle, Derrida, Foucault, Freud, Marx (yes, Marx), Irigary, etc. Then after we discussed these primary texts (no wimpy summaries for us), we applied these theories to literature and read critical approaches associated with those texts. Next to this "rigorous" approach, my graduate theory class seems like a joke. An extensive Marxist joke--and Marxists aren't known for their humor.

The point? I feel somewhat forced to interpret the book we have to analyze theoretically using a Marxist approach. (After all, my professor has asserted time and again that Marxism is the only theory worth knowing). I'd actually prefer to deconstruct it, since I acquired a liking of Derrida through the course of the semester, but hey. He purposely assigned a text that has clear points for Marxist interpretation--Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed.

Damn Marxists. I could so easily like you, if you didn't get hammered into my head everyday...

(I read and presented on Terry Eagleton's After Theory, which did much more for my Marxist sympathies than this theory class has...)

Meme! Books!

Look at the list of books below: *Bold the ones you’ve read* Italicize the ones you want to read* Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.

I'm not going to italicize all the ones that I want to read because that'd be ridiculous. There will be commentary...

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
Unfortunate event of my reading career. I picked it up because my boyfriend liked it, only to find out that he liked it because he recognized all the places. Bad, bad.

2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Ah, Jane Austen. I avoided her for a while, only to fall in love with her wholeheartedly last semester. I'm winding my way through her canon.

3. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Of course! Fantastic!

4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
Yes! Yes!

6. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
Yes! Yes!

7. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
I wrote my senior thesis on The Lord of the Rings.

8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
A childhood favorite--I read it over and over again...

9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
God, no.

13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18 The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
This was a well-timed book in my young life. I need to re-read it now that I'm older and see if it has the same power for me.

21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
Of course I read it. And loved it. And read it some more.

22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
Fantastic book. I borrowed it from a dear friend and enjoyed it, then passed it off to Lance, who also loved it.

26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
I discovered it in high school and adored it. It was so funny! (Though my devoutly Christian soul was troubled by his flippant comments about Christianity...)

27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
Another childhood favorite that I read about a zillion times.

29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
My friend Kim got me to read this, and I really enjoyed it.

32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
Maybe...all Nicholas Sparks books run together in my head (they suck, in other words--and I have read two or three of them...)

33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
I read Anthem!

34. 1984 (George Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
Working on it, anyway.

43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
I've read this twice now. I read it originally for Donna's class, and loved it, and on the second reading discovered just how well she wrote this book. Barbara Kingsolver is an amazing writer and essayist. I recommend The Bean Trees. I read it in high school and cried at the end, it was so good.

52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
This was my first Dickens. I like Dickens a lot and would read more of him given the chance.

55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
I think I hated this book in high school, when I read it independently. I might feel differently now, considering it's one of the "Great Books".

56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
My first Margaret Atwood novel, read in annoyance because I kept seeing her referred to by other authors and critics. The annoyance soon dropped away, and I enjoyed the book--it is interestingly structured and poignant.

60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Started it!

69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
Another childhood favorite, read about a zillion times.

76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
Read it one summer and enjoyed it. Smith can be a little heavy-handed, but she tells a good story.

78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
My first novel ever!

81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
This book is depressingly good. (What's up with that, Steinbeck?)

83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
Of course!

86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
I read it my senior year of high school and liked it. I need to reread it to make sure it's still as good as I remember (my tastes changed drastically in college).

87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
A beautiful story of family and bees.

95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
Uggh, no, but I read some other horrible three word titled book by Ludlum. My critique: "The Same Story".

96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
This book fascinated me to no end. I watched the movie and liked it. Then I picked up the book and was blown away. There is so much going on that I felt the need to write for weeks after reading this book.

98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Has anyone really read Ulysses? I mean, really.

Hrm, 42. Not too bad, I suppose (almost half!)

Grammar Humor

I always get a kick out of grammar humor. Maybe it's because much of it is so subtle that only someone who enjoys and appreciates the complexities of grammar can get it--a sort of inside joke between grammarians and linguists. Sometimes they are just ironic and make you snort a little. And sometimes people sell grammar humor on t-shirts. And I still enjoy it.

Take "I'm a Noun". I've been tempted to purchase this because it is grammar irony, but keep reminding myself that I probably wouldn't wear it anywhere except to bed. It's the sort of thing that a hipster college kid would wear (not me), but I can still appreciate the humor.

Then there's this one--a lovely play on words. Books are good for you...just like broccoli!

I had a friend tell me that she thought of me whenever she saw this one. Maybe it's because I get a little red in the face when people confuse words like their, there, and they're or your and you're. Or it's and its. (Not that I've never not confused them...but...I'm knowledgeable about the difference.)

Ah, grammar humor. What's your favorite grammar joke?

***This post brought to you by Threadless. Mostly because I'm too lazy to look for other examples of grammar humor.***

Prose: Knitting Gathering

As I've discussed with the Secret Knitter, I love that I've found an online knitting group. However, since I knit frequently in public and at gatherings, friends of mine have approached me about wanting to learn. I decided that it was time to finally start a real knitting group. So, in a couple of weeks, many friends will gather at my apartment and we will knit and drink wine.

Why did I feel the need? I figure it'd be a good place for people of all levels of knitting to come together to share and develop their skills. Thus far I've recruited mostly newbies--people who either know rudimentary skills of skills or who are still learning to cast on and knit. I'm, I believe, the most experienced one...which doesn't mean a whole lot since I don't know how to properly teach knitting. I just say, "Uh...do it like this", which isn't the most effective.

But I am looking forward to the knitting group. It'll be a good way--in some skewed sense--for me to practice my professoring skills. Or something like that. But mostly it's a way for me to develop and belong to a community of knitters in the non-virtual world, just like I have here.

(This post is mostly in obligation of some desire I've formed to actually attempt to post everyday...)