Saturday, January 31, 2004
I'm reading Marshall Alcorn's very interesting Changing the Subject in English Class. But I'm troubled by Alcorn's understanding of cultural studies. There's a bit of dichotomizing going on between cultural studies based pedagogy and something not exactly expressivist, but close to it. The problem is that Alcorn reduces cultural studies to James Berlin's work, and particularly, to Berlin's push to create a politicized student subject (typically a leftist student subject). This is not, however, what all cultural studies based teaching does. There do exist classrooms which try to alter the student's political thought. But cultural studies as a learning project is not based in the left or right. It is a project about knowledge: knowing how representations (school, language, work, popular culture, theory, etc) are created.
What I think Alcorn (as I read so far) misses in his promotion of desire is that cultural studies is based on desire: the desire to know. I want to know how my world is constructed. What forces have led me to the ways I think about school or country? Alcorn writes that "An ideal democracy requires that people be able to recognize their own desires and those of others" (66). But how do you do that if you are unaware of the forces that create desire in you? I don't just "believe" in democracy, for instance. I am exposed to various forces (repeating the national anthem every day, for instance) that cause me to believe in democracy. My desire is not innate nor is it natural. Once I find believe in some kind of "hidden" desire, I fall victim to a vision of expression Peter Elbow preaches and which really creates a false sense of desire.
But I do like the book so far.
Posted by jrice @ 02:28 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
In honor of horrible Michigan weather:
Weather List:
1. Snow: An obvious way to begin. Early '90s - riding home from a party in Indiana, we experience our first bout with snow driving. Off the road I go and get stuck. My frustration and temper is exposed and the relationship ends shortly afterwards. I'm always reminded of Tom Waits' "Emotional Weather Report" from the Nighthawks at the Diner disc.
the western region
of my mental health
and the northern portions of my
ability to deal rationally with my
disconcerted precarious emotional
situation, it's cold out there
2. Hurricane: The night of Hurricane David I laid awake all night waiting for the moment when I would have to bust open the bars of my window (it was Miami; we needed bars) with the flip of the metal piece that turned, and make a run for it. Would I stop running? That moment never came. The flooding wiped out the street and overflowed the canal, but our house stayed dry.
3. Heat: What I learned about living in Gainesville is I sweat. I sweat a lot. Five minute bike rides to campus left me drenched. The summer my car's air conditioning broke was the worse. We went to the plant sale on Archer Road with friends, but in separate cars. When we all arrived and got out of our cars, I was the only one dripping wet. Sweating is embarrassing. You slyly try to wiped it off your forehead, over your lip, your cheeks, and all you end up with is a wet hand and more sweat. In freshmen biology, the professor arrived sweating and tried to explain it as the body's response as it tries to cool down. But I never cool down. For this, I am a true hot head.
Posted by jrice @ 03:15 PM EST [Link]
Monday, January 26, 2004
I've been getting this same spam email over and over lately from the Rwrd Dept. It promises me that
You have an Unclaimed Package in our Security Vault Area
waiting for release and delivery.
Seems someone has decided to send me something! Far out! Here are the details:
The contents of your Package are CONFIRMED
to be one of the following Brand Name items:Description of
Vault Holdings: - DAEWOO MINI-TELEVISION
- AHNSER HANDHELD MODERN PDA
- SMART-CAM DIGITAL CAMERA
That's some good stuff. And I could use a digital camera (if it's a video digital camera). But rather than claim my reward, which I'm promised won't cost me shipping, handling, or a release fee, I'd rather use this email for pedagogical purposes. I want it to serve as inspiration for a writing assignment.
Spam Assignment One
Pick someone in the class.
Find out a few things about that person (interests, desires, fetishes).
Design a series of reward packages you would send that person based on the research (the interview) you conducted.
Spam that person with your results. Send your emails many times throughout the day and throughout the night. When your audience responds, you have reached your rhetorical effect.
Or a variation would be for everyone to jot down their interests, desires, fetishes and put the results in a hat or box. Then let other students randomly draw entries and design a series of reward spams for the anonymous individual they've drawn. Instead of spamming the one person, students would spam the class listserv. Later we can guess who is who.
Very Breton-ish for a writing assignment, no?
Posted by jrice @ 07:17 PM EST [Link]
Friday, January 23, 2004
Friday Morning musings:
Posted by jrice @ 10:49 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Food Listography
Folks who know me knew this was coming:
1. Coriander. Not long after I moved in to this place, my old neighbor came down one day and look around. "Where are all the pictures on your walls?" he asked. "Pictures?" "Yea. I hear all that banging down here in the evening and I assume you're hanging pictures. I thought your place would be covered in pictures." Who needs a spice grinder when you can bash spices in a mortar and pestle?
2. Chick peas. One day I'm working away in my home office (type type type...lessee, can I think up an even wackier idea about writing pedagogy?), when I smell the faint odor of something burning. I think first: hmmm. Wonder what that is...did I forget something. Then it hits me. The pot of water I set to boil the chick peas in over an hour ago! When all that water evaporates, where does it settle in the kitchen?
3. Coffee. We used to pull over to the side of the road in South Lebanon during night patrols. The Druze trackers would prop open the jeep and stick a fijan on the engine. The heat would cause the water to boil. The Turkish coffee would then boil inward, and we'd add the hell (spelling?) afterwards. This is how I learned to make coffee.
4. Cheese. On a train from Rome to Paris, two Moroccan boys sat across from me with a large garbage bag at their feet. Not bright enough to know to pack food for the trip (a habit I now know well enough), I was extremely hungry. Every now and then, the boys would reach into the bag, pull something out, and eat it. I could smell something akin to blue or asiago cheese, something tangy, yet nice. Finally, they realized I was watching. "Would you like some sardines?" they asked. "We've packed enough for three days of traveling."
Posted by jrice @ 02:05 PM EST [Link]
Monday, January 19, 2004
Some colleague inspiration:
A Book Listography (I'll save the "Hate" one for later):
1. Greg Ulmer's Heuretics: The Logic of Invention. The summer of 1997 I was an instructor of writing at Santa Fe Community College and a post-bac student at UF (when I came back to the States, it was too late to apply for graduate school, thus the post-bac status). I was scheduled to take a course with Greg Ulmer in the Fall, and a co-worker at Santa Fe (who studied with Ulmer as an undergrad) told me to read this book. Even after being out of school for five years, I got it. It was serious writing theory. It was about technology. It was about riffing. It was funny and it made me think about rhetoric and writing. It probably is what made me change from lit to composition. Oh yeah. And Ulmer ended up my MA and PhD director.
2. The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy. There was this used bookstore on University Avenue in Gainesville that was a mess. Books were everywhere. You could also find toys, old posters, retro stuff, etc. But nothing was put in any kind of order, and half the stock was on the floor. The store really didn't even have a name. I bought this Dick Tracy collection there. When I got home, I noticed it was one of Robert Ray's old books. His name was written on the inside cover. I eventually ended up with a lot of his books, including Vygotsky's Thought and Language, which was the basis for my MA thesis on Vygotsky and computer classrooms.
3. The Art of Horror Stories. This is a hardback collection of horror illustrations that I don't think I've ever read. I bought it at the Gainesville Friends of the Library bookstore one year for probably a quarter. I used to just buy stuff there if it looked the least bit interesting. That's why I have so many Phillp Roth novels. I'd guess about 1/3 of my books came from going to that sale every year, twice a year, for five years.
4. Kittler's Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. A great book for writing theory. But even greater: it's one of the many books I've gotten for free by requesting exam copies. Sometimes I use those exam copies in my courses. Sometimes I don't. This one I never did.
5. Amos Oz's To Know a Woman. Once, yes once, I read a lot of literature. I discovered Oz during the five years I lived in Israel. Probably the greatest Israeli novelist, Oz is also one of the best contemporary writers. This book had a strong affect on me when I first read it (maybe in my early 20s) for how it treated failed relationships of all kinds - as long as they dealt with women. I always wanted to teach it in an intro to lit course. But I seldom teach literature. When I did have the chance in such a course at UF, I chose Oz's Black Box instead because of how it plays with narrative structure. The students loved the book, but somehow I feel I missed my chance to teach the novel I really wanted to do.
Posted by jrice @ 07:04 PM EST [Link]
My professional listserv is at it again. Advice on the Most Common Grammar Errors is circulating, and we've been directed to Andrea Lunsford's Online list (taken from her handbook). From missing commas to the it/it's distinction, Lunsford covers 'em all, for sure. What a nice way to reduce writing to "error." But hey, error is contagious. What about the 20 Most Common Errors members of my professional listserv make regarding composition? I'll just list a few:
Posted by jrice @ 02:49 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Both my playoff picks for today were wrong. What happened? Why did I think Peyton would pull through? Do I not remember his SEC days?
Posted by jrice @ 10:13 PM EST [Link]
Friday, January 16, 2004
Lessee...what shall I write about today? The trip to the Outer Drive campus to pick up a pay check I missed in December? The walls of slush alongside the road (traffic going the other way on Southfield backed up. Someone slid into one of those walls)? This really nice fish dish (in a lentil/carrot/tomato sauce) I just cooked?
Maybe the book!
The Technology chapter gives me problems. The material is there: McLuhan in '63, Engelbart, Nelson, Sutherland...all thinking about writing and computing in ways composition wasn't (composition wasn't thinking about computing at all - with the odd exception of Kitzhaber's strange idea of a teaching machine in Themes).
But the narrative just isn't working. Right now, one section about Engelbart and his vision, one section about Nelson and hypertext, one section about Sutherland and Sketchpad. Mixed in all this is stuff about the '63 CCCC and the '63 American Federation of Information Processing Societies Computer Conferences. And some stuff about ETV and '63 education oriented journals with technology ads. All the stuff composition's 1963 grand narrative leaves out.
All this will lead into Hewlett Packard's vision of Cooltown - so that the problem is HP has the wrong vision of cool and technology. HP, as I'm trying to do overall in this book regarding pedagogy, needs to imagine Cooltown from the position of the rhetoric of cool. But HP isn't, of course. Cooltown is WebCT/Blackboard with "cool" slapped across the package label. So, this is a lesson for education, or otherwise we will create our own version's of HP's Cooltown (which was my WPA talk last summer).
So I have all the material. But I want a different structure to how I'm presenting it. I want the voice. The rewrites of the first few chapters have that voice. Argh. I don't want to start echoing Donald Murray here and talk about "voice!"
So there you go: daily blogging. Back to your daily reading, folks.
Posted by jrice @ 07:47 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Taking my cue from Gerald Graff's "Hidden Intellectualism," I see a model for "hidden writing": The Hidden Song Archive. Students would compose their own "hidden songs": ideas, fragments, observations, concepts, theories, not easily apparent. This would be the opposite of topic sentence driven writing which depends on the obvious. Hidden writing asks students to make their claims, ideas, etc. less obvious and to surround such positions with various anecdotes, observations, ideas, facts, etc.
Posted by jrice @ 03:45 PM EST [Link]
We're expecting up to 8 inches of snow today. The woman at Western Market this morning says to me: "It's a stay at home day." Yup. And being sick doesn't help.
Stuff to do:
Posted by jrice @ 10:32 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
The L.A. Times is running a story on cool. Once again, I have not been consulted. As my mentor would say, you have to get consulted for this kind of stuff. Instead the newspaper called up "Donna Jo Napoli, a Swarthmore College professor of linguistics" who has this to say:
"Cool" is an example of an "underspecified word," Napoli says. The less specific a word, the more meanings it can have. "Assassinate" is an example of a "highly determined" word, one that can't be used in too many contexts, she says. The more unspecified a word is, the more staying power it has, she says.
Eh? Not too insightful. Cool is a rhetoric, man! It's a way of writing!
The power of working with keywords is to break their commonplace meanings. But see how hard it is to get beyond the basic meaning of cool. Post-structuralism seems to have taught us nothing; we continue to rely upon assumed and "natural" meanings. We are too literate (Aristotle). We now need to be electrate (chora).
So what would I have said to the reporter? "You're going about it all wrong, pal. Cool isn't about personality anymore. It's about digital rhetoric."
And what would the reporter have said?
"Er....that's cool (raised voice signifiying lack of understanding)"
Posted by jrice @ 03:25 PM EST [Link]
Monday, January 12, 2004
Real Life (No Rock) Top Five.
From Jenny. (aka, The Jolly Blogger). Thanks to j for temporarily housing my blog.
1. Kelis. “Milkshake.” Is it embarrassing to like this song? Yes. Yes it is. But let me just explain it this way: I’ve been watching MTV2, MTV Jams, and MTV Hits. These are the MTV channels that play music, as opposed to MTV. The original MTV only plays footage of spring break parties and Eminem tributes. So, while watching one of the real “M”TVs, I saw the video for “Milkshake.” I couldn’t get the refrain out of my head. “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.” This song couldn’t have more any more hooks if it was a fishing pole. Maybe five years ago, this would be enough for me to scorn “Milkshake” as an inferior piece of music. Hooks are distractions. Hooks are for the talentless, the uncreative, the jerks. But I am beginning to appreciate the hook. I’m fighting it less—hardly at all, in fact. There’s something nice about Kelis’s willingness to put out this single almost entirely comprised of one big hook. Put yourself in autopilot and just sing along. The refrain floats from its own weightlessness.
2. My blog is still down. I emailed Ryan the IT guy to find out what’s going on. When will the server be back up? I began my email with an apology and an acknowledgement that this question is pretty annoying. “I’m sorry to ask you this annoying question, Ryan. . .” But then I blurted it out anyway. Asking when the server will be back up is the technical equivalent to asking your parents if “we’re there yet.”
3. My dentist’s name is Dr. Root. It’s funny. He gets a lot of attention because of the name. Lots. I’ve gone back to Dr. Root three times now. He’s an okay dentist, don’t get me wrong. And the woman who actually cleans my teeth is very good. But I always expect Dr. Root to be funnier, jollier. Like the same clowning cosmos that produced a dentist named Jim Root would just naturally make him a hilarious guy. Has everyone walked in with this expectation? Could it be that he’s reached a breaking point? I once heard that dentists have a high rate of suicide. It’s from the mixture of dealing with people’s fears, hatred, and pain all day (all while expecting you, the dentist, to be very cheery). That expectation of “constant joy” probably takes a toll. To be perfectly honest with you, I think Dr. Root could snap any day now.
4. It would only take a few minutes to touch up the spots I missed when painting my living room. Have I done it? No. Instead I walk by that same spot every day, feeling aggravated. How much longer will this go on? And how low is too low to hang a picture? Why can’t we hang pictures at knee level? That would cover the spot very nicely.
5. Paying all in coins is a gas. Wicked fun. You have to announce it, though. “I’m paying in all dimes.” Why do I feel compelled to announce this? Does the cashier have to make some kind of special preparation? I know it’s not just me. I’ve seen other people make the “paying in coins” announcement.
“That’s one seventy-five, please.”
“Okay. I’m paying in all nickels.”
Maybe it’s just a little courtesy, but I like to think that we need special prepping for coins. Greasy, heavy coins. I can’t wait for my next coffee purchase.
“Your total is one twenty, ma’am.”
“Get ready for nickels, buddy! Here they come!”
Posted by jenny @ 01:24 PM EST [Link]
More palm photos (self portraits of sorts):
I don't know why I'm using the palm to take pics. I do have a much better digital camera. Maybe it's because hot synch makes the transfer so much easier from handheld to desktop.
Posted by jrice @ 10:20 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, January 8, 2004
Photos taken today with my new Palm Zire 71:
Blurry. But handheldy.
Yo Debi! Thanks!
Posted by jrice @ 04:42 PM EST [Link]
What's in a name? All these logs I'm getting of folks googling "jrice" prompted me to go out and see what the fuss is all about. But I hit "groups" on Google instead of the regular old search. Seems Jrice is the name given to someone's workgroup computer setup over at the University of Oregon. And what do you know? Jrice is very active in the Christian
home schooling community. Not just jrice, but Jeffrey Rice has been tabbing Celtic guitar tabs. And jrice watches Are You Being Served
Jrice is very very busy.
Posted by jrice @ 02:20 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
Suddenly inspired, I started writing out a draft for my CCCC paper (yeah, I do everything early and on time). The idea is to propose Techno as metaphor for the Writing Center - borrowing Boquet's interest in writing center noise and Seitz's undeveloped idea of using metaphor to shape curriculum. Techno, of course, is a post-literate model, an electrate model of interconnectivity. I'm taking some cue here from Eshun's great book on sampling More Brilliant Than the Sun and Shaviro's Connected (as well as Ulmer's statement that mood - the groove - is the focus of digital writing), and finding the Rave as another metaphor for this kind of writing center activity I imagine.
I went over to Everything2.com (a ravist site if there ever was one) and did some searching for rave. I came up with this (among others):
What to bring to a rave
This is the voice of experience speaking!
-Pacifier
-Whistle (Where the fuck is the whistle crew...the whistle crew...)
-Candy (both the kind that you wear, and the kind that you eat to give out)
-Disposable camera (don't you love the way that people smile when they're rollin'?)
-Backpack (to hold everything that you bring)
-A sucker to hold your backpack for you
-directions (this one should explain itself...)
-Extra cash (you know, for glowsticks and water)
-Vicks VapoRub (actually, this is optional for me, I am a vicks mooch)
-Caffeine/Ephedrine (in case you need legal help staying awake)
-Paper/pen (for email addresses and phone numbers)
-Phat pants
and the most important of all, believe it or not...
-Lip Balm
But you really need to read it off the site to get the full effect of clicking through each entry to another entry to another entry to another. . .
That is rave writing. Making the connections where connections are not obvious. But is it rave tutoring? No. For that, I need to expand some more. . .
Posted by jrice @ 11:57 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, January 6, 2004
Lots of cool stuff is scheduled to take place this semester on campus:
Coming up...
* March 3 and 4, 2004. CreateDetroit symposia with Professor Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, at The Max. Discover the Governor's Cool Citites agenda and how the UDM mission fits with the vision of a revitalized greater Detroit.
* March 21, 2004. A Student Awareness Event to Discover Detroit as a Cool City.
* TBA Easter Week. "Sustainability, Stewardship and Social Equity: A Night of Reflection."
* Fall, 2004. Watch for UDM IBSC hosting the Michigan Higher Educatin Consortium on Sustainability - 1st Annual Conference - Cool Cities/Hot Planet.
Only one question I have: how come I (author of essays, a textbook, and unfinished manuscript on cool) wasn't invited to speak?
Posted by jrice @ 02:33 PM EST [Link]
Monday, January 5, 2004
The backyard 2:00 pm
Posted by jrice @ 01:59 PM EST [Link]
Monday morning thoughts regarding the first day of school:
Posted by jrice @ 12:11 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, January 4, 2004
All day I've been waiting for the snow. Winter storm warnings were in effect last night, but nothing so far. Supposedly, we'll still get some before it's all said and done.
Posted by jrice @ 03:41 PM EST [Link]
Friday, January 2, 2004
I get a lot of hits from people doing google, yahoo, or some other kind of search for
jeff rice weblog
This means one of two things to me:
1. Someone reads this blog but doesn't want to bookmark it (I'll just do another google search)
2. For some strange reason there are a lot of people who are curious to know, if by chance, I have a weblog (Gee, maybe Rice has a weblog. Let's search for it!)
Either way, welcome gentle reader(s). But be careful. Even though my site comes up first, some searches for "jeff rice weblog" pull up sites like
this and this and this. None of these sites are about me, but all have either "jeff" or "rice" or some combination. Ya see, you have to put the terms in quotation marks. So instead of
jeff rice weblog
You should type
"jeff rice" weblog
or
"jeff rice" + weblog
That will give you a better, more defined, search.
Posted by jrice @ 07:11 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, January 1, 2004
New Year thoughts:
Posted by jrice @ 02:20 PM EST [Link]
