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My Archives: August 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Media World
This is the time - just prior to the semester - when we start edging on instructors (TAs or adjuncts or even, at times, colleagues) to get on the technology bandwagon, to start thinking of writing in terms of media, to become "oriented" to technology, to . . .The responses are always interesting. There is definite interest. Curiosity. Feeling of being compelled ("yes yes I do need that to be more competitive on the job market..."). Surprised. Plenty of "hows" (how do we do this) if not whys (why should we do this). Among the students or younger adjuncts, the "whys" don't really come up that much. But the "hows"....
Yet shouldn't we feel/anticipate/know the "hows" already? If we are so media involved (collide-oscope culture is us) why is it so difficult to figure out the how part? I like Kelly's comment in Wired that we live in a time period so important that it will be remembered in ways the Industrial Revolution or other such periods today are. But, of course, if we are in that period, that time of transition, than we cannot be completely aware nor yet interpellated into its logics or ways, right? We cannot yet know the hows because we are still learning, still inventing them.
Maybe. But we feel the pull of media, like it or not, we feel the hows in ways we don't yet realize. That allusion to The Sopranos you always use, that memory mixed with a song from the year you graduated high school, those images of street signs you pass and photograph, that collage you imagined and then made, the celebrities you imagine playing you, those virtual maps you play with, the news you swallow, these links I lay out for you and which you click on. . .this is the world of media. We do live it, online or off. So why is the "how" part so difficult to imagine or employ? And those of us who are here online, who have become media beings in many different ways (the minute you took to your blog, were you not also being/becoming the Net, in a Gibson-Case sort of way?), are you still unsure of the "how" part of teaching writing? Are you media here, non-media in the classroom? Why? Within your links, and photos, and blogrolls, and references, and allusions, and mixes, and remixes, and juxtapositions and alter egos....aren't you creating a how of teaching writing digitally?
Aren't we already in the pedagogy of the mix? Not practically yet (or I wouldn't be writing this, eh?). But rather logically?
Posted by jrice @ 09:11 PM EST [Link]
Monday, August 29, 2005
New Semester
In honor of the new semester, rant #456 Part IV:
From Kevin Kelly's essay in Wired, "We are the Web":
The accretion of tiny marvels can numb us to the arrival of the stupendous. Today, at any Net terminal, you can get: an amazing variety of music and video, an evolving encyclopedia, weather forecasts, help wanted ads, satellite images of anyplace on Earth, up-to-the-minute news from around the globe, tax forms, TV guides, road maps with driving directions, real-time stock quotes, telephone numbers, real estate listings with virtual walk-throughs, pictures of just about anything, sports scores, places to buy almost anything, records of political contributions, library catalogs, appliance manuals, live traffic reports, archives to major newspapers - all wrapped up in an interactive index that really works.
From the first day syllabus of any given composition course in these United States:In this course, you will write a paper in which you support a well-crafted thesis.
We ain't come a long way yet, baby.
Posted by jrice @ 04:59 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Sunday in Detroit
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Posted by jrice @ 02:30 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Posted by jrice @ 11:54 AM EST [Link]
Typical NPR Lineup Any Given Saturday (a.ka. Weekend Edition)
8:00 A.M. - 8:15 A.M.: News from the Middle East.
8:15 A.M. - 8:20 A.M.: Kids! They are So Crazy! A Story About Joe Garcia III, the kid who ate a whole watermelon while walking backwards.
8:20 A.M. - 8:25 A.M.: President Bush: Can He Help The Republicans Win in 2008?
8:25 A.M. - 8:35 A.M.: Whatever Happend to the Bay City Rollers?
8:35 A.M. - 8:40 A.M.: Debating Abortion.
8:40 A.M. - 8:50 A.M.: Who Likes Cheese? Tales from Wisconsin's Cheese Industry.
8:50 A.M. - 8:52 A.M.: Ways to Prevent Prostate Cancer.
8:52 A.M. - 8:55 A.M.: The Toilet Wouldn't Flush: A Personal Story.
8:55 A.M. - 9:00 A.M.: Let's Rock! The Rolling Stones Go Back on Tour.
9:00 A.M. - 9:02 A.M.: News From Around the World.
Posted by jrice @ 09:24 AM EST [Link]
Friday, August 26, 2005
Friday - end of August
Posted by jrice @ 05:58 PM EST [Link]
The Ferndale Pool Hall
Posted by jrice @ 04:18 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
DetroitWiki
In progress:
DetroitWiki
Posted by jrice @ 11:04 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 22, 2005
Moodle
Looks like I got a successful install of Moodle going:
http://englishweb.clas.wayne.edu/~jrice/moodle/moodle/
The double moodle directories is my bad. Forget that untarring Moodle would mean another moodle directory. Oh well. Next time I'll know. Otherwise, very simple. Just know how to set up a database on your system and how to unpack the tar file and you're set. Already it looks a bit more dynamic than drupal. Looks like it will be another toy for the teaching practicum.
Now for the play and pedagogical invention. CBD - maybe you can talk about what you're doing/have done with Moodle?
Posted by jrice @ 12:59 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Rip Burn Mix
Posted by jrice @ 06:25 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Collaborative Weblogs
Collaborative Weblogs in the works:
Posted by jrice @ 05:33 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Logo Wars (The Reprise - Late Day Mix)
Posted by jrice @ 05:35 PM EST [Link]
Logo Wars Part III
Posted by jrice @ 01:36 PM EST [Link]
Logo Wars Part X
Posted by jrice @ 10:33 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Notes From the Cliche Underground
That time of year again when teachers on WPA complain that students don't read.
Yawn.
Wonder who buys all them books off Amazon then?
Who's reading the million or so blogs out there?
And you know which people really don't read? Writing teachers. Rhetoric and Composition books are not selling because the teachers don't buy them. Writing teachers don't read.
Ah irony.
Posted by jrice @ 03:40 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The Politics of 15 Minutes
The recent camp out in Crawford has sparked interest in a number of places. I spent part of the day distressed about much of this, not because of a war I don't support, and not because of one specific person's very tragic loss. I feel more distressed by the 15 Minutes of Fame policy which drives national attention and frames a good deal of political debate. We grant this woman 15 minutes and catapult her voice into the arena. There are 2,000 (?) American parents whose voices we have not heard. Why hers? Why is she the voice of the anti-war movement now? Can she say anything, offer any kind of analysis of the war and its causes, and still represent a movement? Or, as I often argue regarding meaning making, is the question of representation no longer valid? But then that means we should let any claim about any situation stand, no matter how ridiculous, racist, or plain old wrong? In the 15 Minutes of policy making we have grown accustomed to (mostly through the logic of CNN), representation is not a valid move, even though the belief in representation still reigns.
Normally, I find comfort in Warhol's 15 Minutes: celebrity and the Web as cause for new kinds of rhetorics. But this political dimension doesn't feel new at all; it feels quite old. Politics always fails to "represent." Cliches and hyperbole the rule of thumb. In the 15 Minutes of policy stances, as in this Crawford issue, complex issues become reduced to the instant celebrity of some person, who, in turn reduces such complexities to right/wrong divisions. Then a large group rallies around the instant celebrity triumphing the right or left agenda.
I've given up on politics....but still I want to sympathize and join one side of this false binary division of right and left, and that side is the left. And yet I can't. While I want to say end the war, I can't join the left because every time I hear a position from the left regarding geo-politics (and the war is one part of that, causes of terrorism another, global capital another), I cringe. I find the arguments presented so uninformed, so basic, so much the product of black and white thinking (the very same black and white thinking Bush evoked when he proclaimed the world as "with us or against us") that I turn my back. I don't turn to the right (who I see in much the same way), but I turn away. If all situations are going to be reduced to political sound bites and instant notoriety, then why bother with politics at all? This rhetorical move I find so distressing will produce no results other than continuation of the same. It is not a solving rhetoric, but rather a glamour rhetoric. A look at me rhetoric. That is, of course, a productive rhetoric, but its productive status has little to nothing to do with "change." Its production is more or less at image, superficial gestures to garner attention. I like that gesture when we are discussion advertising, identity, writing, or theory in general. I find it less interesting when we discuss complex global issues and problems. A contradiction on my part? Probably. But I don’t mind the contradiction, for if I did, I would be denying the levels of complexity which make up all meaning at the meta-level as well. It is working with complexity (networks) that will produce better responses to geo-political issues, not binary divisions of right and wrong.
Posted by jrice @ 04:05 PM EST [Link]
Monday, August 15, 2005
Interviews Part IV
Posted by jrice @ 03:38 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Posted by jrice @ 09:13 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Rap Break
I get stupid.
I shoot an arrow like cupid.
I use a word that don't mean nuttin'
like loopded.
Posted by jrice @ 10:16 PM EST [Link]
Friday, August 12, 2005
Schools That Rock
Number 3 on Rolling Stone's Schools that Rock list is: Wayne State. Hey, I knew we rocked. But do we roll?The Motor City certainly isn't the prettiest town, but who said rock & roll is supposed to be pretty? Perhaps thanks to all the urban squalor, Detroit has churned out some of the grittiest rock, hip-hop, soul and techno acts of the past forty years. As for the city's academic offerings, Wayne State University has a music-management program that introduces students to the study of marketing and promotion but also includes course work in independent record production and grant writing.
Who are you calling squalor! Ruins are beautiful.
And sure, music mangement is good and all that, but English is where it's at (ahem). So all you hipsters looking to earn your chops on a PhD (apply) or looking for a job if you got a Phd (apply to our position we will post again this Fall) and who just have to rock (we salute you), you know where to go.
Btw - the girl's hometown made number 4.
[technology note: check out the messed up urls b/w the two listings within the same story. wtf?]
Posted by jrice @ 08:18 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Reading Mix (Detroit Style) Part IV - James Brown Version (Get Up Off That Thang)
Posted by jrice @ 01:27 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Uniformity
One project I'm working on right now deals with, among other issues, this rhetoric of uniformity stressed throughout composition studies (a recent post to WPA-L requested that we all remember the importance of uniformity, that “agreements are
essential for our field, as for any field, and we should not ignore or
depreciate them when we talk about the interesting issues we like to debate.”) The desire to be uniform seems to come from a few factors:
And out of these points, we have a conservatism that is hard to break. The desire to be uniform is also the desire to conserve specific ideals and practices (Change is not Us).
Much of this has been condensed in the infamous need for Outcomes. Outcomes, like any other catch phrase entered into a conservative vocabulary, is hard to argue against. Who would be against having outcomes? What's so unreasonable about outcomes? (In Bush-speak: How can you note be “for the children?”) Nothing really. Except that outcomes strive for uniformity. As vague as you want to make them (or claim them to be) they still insist on a unified product to emerge at the end of the process (the outcome for this assembly line is a finished Chevy; or in Fordist terms, you can have any composition student you want, as long as she is X).
So let's employ a little cultural studies methodology here: question the assumption (we need outcomes) we assume to be true.
What other area of English Studies demands an outcomes statement: Victorianists? American Lit folks? British Lit folks? Who? Where? The ALA gets together and drafts an outcomes? Do they? Does SCS (or whatever they are called today) ask for outcomes in teaching film and media? I’d like to see these statements if they exist (and I don’t really know if they do).
What critical theory (instead of area of study within the discipline) demands outcomes? Poststructuralism? Cultural Studies? Media Studies?
These areas of thought, it seems to me, resist by the very nature the notion of uniformity (differance!).
Another question: Do we really believe that our area of study will collapse or be vanished if we don’t agree on what we do?
Seriously. How can we be that naïve?
Posted by jrice @ 08:42 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 9, 2005
Narrating Place: Mapping the City
Click the image for notations (i.e. narrative):
Posted by jrice @ 09:36 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 7, 2005
Represent
Jenny asked me this morning why folks like me tend to get up in arms over Chronicle and Inside Higher Ed pieces about teaching, research, or technology. The best answer I can muster right now is representation. I have a problem with how such outlets represent the work we do. Even though a good chunk of the writing comes from the field itself, it seems to come from the most mundane, basic, old school, outdated thinking imaginable. The point is also true for academic journals, but these online/print publications designed for popular consumption are problematic for the very public representations they project. The most recent Chronicle column picked up by Collin, Steve, and others acts as if the Web was invented yesterday ("hey, if you have a book, you should make a website for it!"). This was the problem with the hypertext column in Inside Higher Ed Collin and I attacked months ago (and whose author got upset with us). The wriitng doesn't recognize any of the work already being done. But the writing is projected and (often) accepted as a "new" "revealing" or "good" contribution to academic work.
I don't want to minimize the same problems in academic (so called peer reviewed) journals. I have had a two year struggle with one journal who accepted a critical piece and since has delayed publishing it because the essay takes to task this very attitude in academia (and our profession in writing, in particular). Once the bottom falls out for good and the journal finally admits it won't publish the essay after all, I'll no doubt be very forthcoming with details (what, me not rant?). What is so troubling in this instance - and the ones noted above - is the fear factor involved: those who look to represent academia in writing through the power of publishing are often too afraid to work with the new ideas. The new ideas, as we are told over and over by many of our colleagues and journal editors, are too confusing, too complex, too technological, too "time consuming" to work with. The fear factor = the dumbing down equation. We academics (and we are told this by fellow academics), should remain dumb and stupid when it comes to innovation. Let's settle for the mundane instead. After all, the mundane is the easiest to understand.
Posted by jrice @ 09:09 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 4, 2005
The New Semester
The New Semester approaches.
For the first time in ten years, I didn't teach during the summer. One would think this opportunity would have given me all kinds of advantages in terms of reading and writing - what most folks claim to want to do right before summer begins - but I haven't seen a significant change in work patterns. If anything, I saw my work drop off a bit - less reading. Less writing. For me, that doesn't really mean much since I am active and get work done all the time regardless of the semester or time of year.
But this is not a lament.
The work mantra in our field is fairly obsessive compulsive. "WORK" "WORK" "WORK." And yet - with, of course, exceptions - I find that the loudest voices are the ones who get the least done. Real work is not the declaration "I'm so busy." Nor is it the always-not-to-be-fulfilled promise of summer catching up. Work is management. Time management. Life management.
I've recently skimmed through several PhD to be or already PhD reports of schedules which go unrealized or get bogged down in trivial affairs (cats, checking email, reading sports scores). The overall conclusion seems to be how difficult it is to get anything done as an academic unless one chains oneself to a wall somewhere and leaves aside earthly pleasures like BoingBoing, PlayStation, or Pardon the Interruption. The trivial has no place in our work, this account claims. If only I could get away from these seductions, I would get my work done!
That trope is as bad as not working at all. It's amusing to read the accounts, but if one really wants to get work done (whatever that ambiguous phrase might mean - each institution offers its own demands), one doesn't have to be a recluse either. The clichés of academics (summer catching up/being busy) are often more counter-productive than anything else. They materialize in how one works ("first I need to do a literary review" "then I show methods") to what one writes about ("and here's the actual assignment to show what I've been discussing" "first we need to address access" "this representation shows inequality"). And they materialize in responses to new kinds of work ("maybe that will go at your fancy research school, but at our more humble we accept anybody school, it would never work"). Either way, these are all clichés. It might do the profession better to move beyond repeating these little mantras and to start the meta-quest of work (hmm...it turns out that all these interests which attract my attention on a given day connect/inform/spark ideas/provide context/relate). This is all part of a larger issue of binary division (work here/life here) which, of course, is necessary, but maybe not in the sense it is currently being drawn out to be.
Posted by jrice @ 08:40 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 2, 2005
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
What I used to think was a pretend malady has struck me.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
A real terror-wrist
Like Mixmaster Mike, but without the groove.
Like Irregular Chickens
Squawk. Can't type.
Carpe tunnel.
Seize the wrist.
Posted by jrice @ 12:55 PM EST [Link]
Gibson
William Gibson on William Burroughs and sampling:
Our culture no longer bothers to use words like appropriation or borrowing to describe those very activities. Today's audience isn't listening at all - it's participating. Indeed, audience is as antique a term as record, the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical. The record, not the remix, is the anomaly today. The remix is the very nature of the digital.
Yup. That's what I've been saying all along.
Dear composition studies: awake. Awake from the slumber of the tropes of audience and purpose. Forget about plagiarism. Welcome to the digital.
Posted by jrice @ 09:48 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 1, 2005
Views That Didn't Make it Into Inside Higher Ed
Posted by jrice @ 10:08 AM EST [Link]
