Thursday, September 30, 2004
More Liu Critique
Upfront apologies for too much Liu critique these days (no apologies to Liu, of course, but to those bored by such commentary). Reading his new book causes, for expected reasons, all kinds of reactions, but many reactions related to recent posts as well.
Liu writes: "In the relevant future, I believe, education will increasingly need to teach that cool is a historical condition. . .A first step would be to follow the lead of those cultural critics who have investigated the history of media, advertising, entertainment, fashion, and other forms of consumer culture" (306).
What’s wrong with that? As Jameson has written, "always historicize." The main problem with the statement is that the historicizing is meant to undermine the item being investigated. Those cultural histories Liu draws attention to (media, advertising) are most often positioned as moments of understanding in which we come to realize how bad these items truly are. Ah ha. Now I know how advertising dupes me.
This is one of the major faults of contemporary education: seeing popular culture as "outside" of or antithetical to the Humanities. Liu mostly does this in his very random, often digressing, at times schizophrenic, discussion of cool and technology. Cool is in opposition to the Humanities, Liu pleads.
In 1960, Walter Ong notes:
“Teachers and students of language and literature must cultivate sensitivity to the more profound significance of the media of popular culture.” Point well taken. But not in work like Liu's. In fact, I wonder why this interest in cool, anyway? To offer critique? Ok. Fair enough. But the critique really isn't about cool, is it? It's focused more on how technology and the information economy diverts us away from the "real" work of the Humanities. What, I would ask, does this book learn from cool’s various meanings and manifestations spread out across a spectrum of knowledge bases? Very little, it seems. No matter how much he deeps into the texts written about cool or into technology, Liu always comes back with a zinger about “being cool.”
It is one thing to offer up critiques of popular culture (the cultural studies approach mostly) and another to learn from popular culture. Of course, we already have learned from popular culture; the novel is the result of that experience. But the novel is too absorbed into higher education today to keep that fact full frontal (ha ha). Liu’s argument seems more situated in a resuscitation of an almost dead university culture; its demise blamed on popular culture. What, however, would it look like to base the university or Humanities on popular culture (as Graff almost suggests in his last book). Not to teach popular culture (like the Open University of the 1970s), but to base its logic on popular culture? To ask that question is to break the bond of Humanistic learning (ordered learning, rational thought, literary explication) Liu seeks to revitalize or save. It is to completely reimagine education. This book ain’t doing that. Pity. Liu’s usage of cool more closely resembles the overall move by higher education to integrate technology with all kinds of big time expressions (“lifelong learning” “connectivity”) but little actualization of technology in its structure or logic. He’s got some of the lingo and cultural allusions down, but none of the real meaning.
Posted by jrice @ 02:31 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
WPA II
This post follows the previous and the two comments offered by John and Derek.
I'm reading Nancy Sommers' article in the latest CCC, "The Novice as Expert," and here we find a nice example of the WPA instituting order. Like Andrea Lunsford's St. Martin's Handbook, Sommers justifies her work and research as WPA at Harvard with student comments collected in an evaluation process. All of the comments are supportive and enthusiastic. Of course, students experience joy and pleasure in a first year writing course. But many also don't. Where are those students? Why this "ordered" view of the first year experience that sounds so perfect and wonderful? Where are the students who complain about the unqualified teachers hired to man the class, who are in and out of the university as fast as they can (another gig in 20 minutes to make/you only pay me to teach and nothing more/I don't care), who really don't know themselves about writing, who are just passing time until a better job comes along? The consequences of this kind of experience, particularly in the urban university, is students drop out due to bad feelings about the low quality of fyc. Sommers doesn't seem to be aware of such problems, not even by the end of the essay when brief mention of student failure is overshadowed by "order" again.
Where are the unordered experiences? This essay reads like a morality piece – echoing the morality central to literacy studies. It's too easy to dismiss Sommers at Harvard (and Lunsford at Stanford) as working with the elite students (thus, these students enjoy fyc or appreciate it more). I don't buy that argument. What I do see is the overall trend to order our WPA experience, and to do so often in terms of morality and life learning experiences (“I’m a better person because of this class/literacy”). No dissent here, folks. Look all you want, but you won’t find it. Look at this cliché Sommers repeats about student "Jeremy":
"Everyone questions everything at college. Each day another thing I used to see as an immovable truth in my life is severely shaken."
Now where have I heard that one before? The Cosby Show (Theo goes to college...) or just about any popular representation of the collegiate experience. Hardly enlightening.
We see these same ideas carry over into technology-oriented pedagogies (also see recent thread on WPA-L for evidence) where order is foregrounded in its usage and application (professional writing/usability studies) or refusal to acknowledge the half-hazard nature of digital rhetoric which is often allusive, confusing, and straight up weird.
The two forces come together in these kinds of essays, like Sommers’, which repeat story after story of students praising the fyc experience. Why this repetition? So you, too, dear reader will see the necessity for order and compliance in fyc. Don’t rock the boat. This is ideology at its loudest. "Hey you!" interpellation to make us all nice and ordered.
Posted by jrice @ 11:26 AM EST [Link]
Monday, September 27, 2004
I'm not a WPA anymore ..but I've wanted to write an article which uses Ulmer's puncept to explore the WPA / WPA connection (like my other puncept idea Hacker/Hackerism...). The usefulness of these kinds of writings, I believe, is the exploration of digital invention (not codification of..) whose focus does not mirror the ways invention is typically taught in a composition textbook or classroom. The topos no longer serve us in the same way they have allowed The Rhetoric to inform (in some way) contemporary writing instruction. We need to understand how to use chora as a grammatological concept of writing.
While my grandfather took part in WPA road construction (before entering the War), he had nothing to do with the arts side of the WPA this site's posters depict. I'm arbitrarily drawn to this poster (the rule of thumb in digital invention, follow the avant-garde practice of "accident"; I don’t know why I arrived here, but I will use it anyway):
It’s an example of the WPA attempting to institutionalize morality and daily habits. It's not unlike the initial (and continuing) goal of literacy acquisition whose roots are in Christian morality. Reading and writing will provide moral individuals (as Graff writes).
Then there is this one:
The promise of order (following the rules/learning to live as a citizen) also is intertwined in literacy's origins. We still cling to the idea of either servicing the university by producing these ordered beings or we service the nation as well (literate beings will maintain a democracy). The language we desire must be "ordered," "safe," clear, and coherent. Ordered thought produces ordered beings. Out of order will come justice, equality, fairness, etc. There is little proof of this, but it is still a common trope in the field used to justify our teaching.
Yet I think about my own grandfather working the highways as anything but ordered. Later in life, yes, but for other kinds of reasons. As a high school drop-out hitchhiking across America, earning what he could in a public works program, going off to war for five years, coming back to an America which wouldn't let him rent a room in Missouri because of his religion, where is the order?
That story in itself is not unique, and oddly enough, also serves many literacy narratives like those published by Deborah Brandt and Mike Rose. The narratives these writers tell almost always end in order, though. The racial/economic/gendered barriers Americans face are overcome by literacy acquisition (the WPA-L model).
Not really so. The story I want to tell doesn’t end that way.
So what does this have to do with digital invention? I use the puncept to provoke a series of questions not about equality and religion and World War II America (the question, i.e., of referentiality and eventually cultural studies). No. I read the WPA-L through this puncept and question its (i.e. composition studies) dependence on "order" as a governing principle of methodology and pedagogy.
More later.
Posted by jrice @ 10:22 AM EST [Link]
Friday, September 24, 2004
Experiments in New Media Writing:
The Pooch.
:we explore non-navigational spaces and interfacelessness:..:we use less technology, not useless technology:.
.:we like extreme prototyping:.
.:we build rather than blog:.
Found Guitar Chords and Lyrics
"New Speedway Boogie" - The Grateful Dead
Am C G Am
You can't overlook the lack, Jack, of any other highway to ride,
It's got no signs or dividing lines, and very few rules to guide.
Am C G Am
Now I don't know but I've been told if the horse don't pull you
got to carry the load.
Am C G D
I don't know whose back`s that strong; maybe find out before too long.Am
One way or another, one way or another, this darkness has got to give.
Liu writes that “cool is information designed to resist information.” Oops. All that network/management theory stuff piled high on each other, and this is a conclusive remark? Like many other new media/Internet writers/writings, the book (so far) seems written outside of the Web. It's like reading Poster on the Interent. Have you surfed (or coded) lately?
Posted by jrice @ 02:10 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Lots of hits today from Susan Delagrange's class at Ohio-Mansfield. Welcome. And say hi to Dion Cautrell over in English. We went to grad school together.
Posted by jrice @ 09:04 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Laws of Cool
Alan Liu's The Laws of Cool starts off like something written by Andrew Ross: Lots of info and name dropping within a single sentence or two, and the reader wonders, "why?" Ross' work shouts out: Research Assistants wrote this! I'll hold off judging Liu's book yet, but its information overload speaks to much of the problems he seems to direct towards the so-called information economy. At over 500 pages its first impression is too much...and why has he chosen the title "cool"? I'll interject commentary and response over the next few posts: travelling with Liu. Notes from the info super highway. Eh. Something of that sort.
Posted by jrice @ 08:32 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
CCC Position
I'm on the search committee for this position. So please apply!
Associate Editor/CCC Online Editor: Term for three years, with a
possibility of another three year term. Responsibilities include
additional conception, design, and management of the CCC Online site;
connecting that site to the CCCC website; working with the Editor of CCC
to create online book reviews and conversations about articles; updating
of the current articles that appear in CCC; and establishing other pieces
that interface the print and electronic journals. Preference may be given
to applicants with server space and/or access to server space.Applicants should submit a current cv and a one page “vision” statement about
CCC Online: please submit those electronically to the CCCC Administrative Assistant
Kristen McGowan, at kmcgowan@ncte.org.Applications will be reviewed beginning October 15th, and the successful candidate will be identified as soon as possible.
Posted by jrice @ 12:04 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, September 19, 2004
More Celebritacy
In another nice moment of celebritacy, Madonna takes up Kabbalah. Now, lots of folks point out the silliness of Madonna thinking herself a Kabbalist (In Judaism, you can't study Kabbalah until a certain age, for example), but I'm more interested in the kinds of knowledge Madonna is producing through celebrity. Of course, this isn’t really Kabbalah, but that is irrelevant. Authenticity in the age of mechanical reproduction is not an issue any more. There is something else being generated here as a form of literacy. Madonna has created a squad of folks who have invented their own meaning system based not on Kabbalah, but on Madonna. From the article:
In recent years, celebrities like Madonna, Britney Spears and Demi Moore have embraced Kabbalah, increasing its profile within a non-Jewish framework and making the mysterious branch of Judaism more accessible to the public.
That these meetings are taking place in Tel Aviv (metropolitan city of techno, hip bars, Sheinkin Street, Paris of the Middle East) and not in Safed (home of mysticism in Israel) is important because it demonstrates how popular culture embodied in the celebrity status shifts our places of learning.
The Madonna example teaches us a great deal about how we learn in the digital age: through the actions, performances, references to, usage of, iconic display (etc) of celebrity (And see Zadie Smith’s novel The Autograph Man for more of this..). The modern textbook was meant to bring literacy to a populace in need of performing the tasks of a society developing economic professionalization (Graff’s “literacy myth”). Now we need textbooks which handle the desire to embody entertainment as both the professional and life experience (the “Warhol myth”). This is the textbook I offer to any publisher interested: a handbook of celebritacy which teaches grammatological principles around what Ulmer calls “the star persona.” A whole chapter on Madonna and Kabbalah should be in it, no?
Posted by jrice @ 09:13 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Carl gives my textbook a nice review in the latest Kairos.
Shout out also to Rich for putting the review in.
Posted by jrice @ 10:09 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
WPA and Job Posts
One of the great email entertainments around this time of year is found on the WPA-L job posts. As various folks post jobs in their depts (look for one I'll post soon), others chime in with desires to apply, concerns, “should I’s,” and other conversations - none of which are meant to be on the list. The private becomes the public. This occurs because of quick replies; the respondent doesn't realize that the to: portion of the email is going to the list and not the imagined recipient (the message never already arrives....).
But what I love about this whole thing is how you get to see the disgruntled, dissatisfied folks out there fed up with their home bases and looking for something better. You get insight into just unhappy many people are in the field, their ambitions, their desire to move, their fears of moving (I remember one last year about “do you think I should put my house up for sale…”). Since the demise of Lingua Franca (which, if memory serves me correct, was never really comp oriented), it’s the closest thing we’ve got to Entertainment Tonight or People for comp studies.
Sit back, grab a beer, and let the reading begin….
Posted by jrice @ 10:04 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Packet Switching:
I have to go back to my notes, but when I was writing my diss a few years back, I think I remember reading in Brian Winston's book on technology that packet switching is invented in 1963.
I've since dropped such a reference from the book (I didn't know what to do with it), but I'm reminded of it while reading Carl Raschke's The Digital Revolution and the Coming of the Postmodern University. I'm at a part of the book where suddenly Raschke starts describing how packet switching works. It seems like an abrupt aside. But it makes me think of the larger issue: the logic of new media.
Let's imagine that packet switching has a logic. Bits of information broken down and routed so that they can reach their destination faster than if they travelled together as one unit.
Now imagine a writing class taking up that logic. How would that work? Pieces of writing? Little pieces of writing floating around? Don't we expect finished, one-piece texts? Why not a series of unfinished pieces? Packets of writing? Who assembles them? When? Does the blog support this logic? The blog as packet switching writing.
Would you teach that? How? Maybe, as Sirc writes, in lists...mixes and remixes of bits of information. What's the logic here? Let the reader conduct the assemblage (the cool act of reading). I used to dismiss the list as the logic of print (Goody) but maybe its logic resurfaces differently as the packet swtich...bits of information put out there....
Posted by jrice @ 08:04 PM EST [Link]
Monday, September 13, 2004
Collin let me know that Alan Liu's book Laws of Cool is out. I'll have to read it. But I will begin with a bit of doubt based on the courses I've seen on his website and the listings he originally named Laws of Cool. In the ctheory piece I drew attention to some problems with how Liu views cool. The previous work he did was fairly negative, making cool out to have a hindering affect on information and the new media economy. The book's official blurb is here. This part troubles me:
The ultimate message of The Laws of Cool is that "cool" may be the most authentic response of contemporary culture to postindustrial knowledge work because it holds open a reserve of counter- or anti-knowledge (an "ethos of the unknown"), but nevertheless in its current form cool is often also know-nothing, narrow, shallow, self-centered, cruel, and coopted.
I'm troubled by both the "authentic" and the "narrow, shallow" remarks. Neither are in my manuscript. I see cool as a rhetoric, one which emerges out of a specific 1963 moment in technology, cultural studies, and writing. The question of authenticity seems irrelevant to me. And the issue of being narrow or shallow, I will guess for now, is going to be attributed to consumer culture. But consumer culture does have quite a bit to teach us, as I show, even if we have no intention of applying its methods in the same way (to sell goods and services). Advertising is one example. HP's Cooltown project is another. One of McLuhan's great lessons is to learn from consumerism how technology works...
Anyway. Off to make another book order I guess....
Posted by jrice @ 04:04 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Sunday Mix
Posted by jrice @ 03:45 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, September 11, 2004
More CCCC
Let's get this thread started!
To follow the interesting thoughts put out there by Collin and Jenny:
Since I'm now in a position of griping, my words should be taken with the caveat that I am only now experiencing rejection and thus acting like a cry baby. But still, these two posts point out a lot of what is wrong with the current system in comp’s largest and best conference.
The idea of multi-SIGs/areas you propose to (Jenny’s idea) does sound attractive. But so do multi-submissions if you can submit both a proposal and/or something else...this year I could have participated in a tribute to my diss director but turned it down to propose a panel. The panel is rejected. The tribute I don't know about yet, but if accepted, I cannot participate now.
And there's possibly a little more to all of this that more closely resembles Collin's position. Ideology. While the field as a whole is reluctant to admit it (see WPA-L) there are solid ideological positions rooted in composition studies regarding what's worth discussing (see the Jenny link and mockery on earlier comments on her blog), and who gets to speak. My feeling lately is that dissenting/alternative viewpoints are quickly being dismissed, ignored, or not given space. We are supposed to agree that argument is good, that "critical thinking" is good, that the modes have vanished, that teaching documentation is correct, that writing instruction has a responsibility to prepare students for a real world, that that that....and if you come out and challenge a lot of this stuff, the reception is cold. Understandable. But not acceptable.
Take this year's CCCC theme: access. I winced at it when I first saw it because it brings up a number of clichés and trite ideas, most of which cannot be solved or solved quickly (Computers! No way. Our students don't have access! Working class people don't have access! People of color don't have access!). There is truth in each statement. But little exist which is solving any of these problems - and regarding technology, access is always an issue. It cannot be solved.
We proposed a way of looking at the idea that didn’t match any of the clichés of radical pedagogy or critical pedagogy, and we were rejected. There’s no way to pinpoint why we were rejected, but I’ll make the assumption that ideological difference played a role; we didn’t want to follow the line regarding access (a student’s right to their own language/open admissions/etc) and that didn’t mesh.
The same holds true for changing the structure of the convention. It probably won’t change. Composition is struggling still to recognize how or why it needs to change the structure of writing to fit better with new media. How is it going to adjust for a growing body of teachers who are quite different in viewpoints, a younger group of teachers who are dissatisfied with the status quo, a format which is too dependent on too many people delivering papers at once, etc. The only way I can imagine change occurring is for those of us who represent the younger voices to be more active in NCTE/CCCC. But, then, we will become the party line eventually and our ideas will become the unreasonable blockages to new work…Of course. But at least then change will be a part of the field’s structure. I’m starting to feel that change is not welcome. We’ve seen significant changes in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s regarding a number of ideas that are now status quo. Maybe we need to change the convention finally too.
Posted by jrice @ 01:47 PM EST [Link]
Friday, September 10, 2004
The Daily Show:
Told as a few days worth of assemblages....
Then we give a little impromptu talk: What the essay was to 19th and early 20th century writing, the t-shirt is to the late 20/early 21st century writing class. Have your students make t-shirts! On the syllabus: "For this class you will need to buy one iron, 10 transfers, a disk..."
Posted by jrice @ 12:11 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, September 8, 2004
CCCC
It was bound to happen, but I'm still in a state of denial.
For the first time ever, I have had a proposal rejected for CCCC. Why?
Was it my have no mercy mockery of Thomas's rejection streak at the last CCCC?
Was it my breaking the Dilger/Rice tradition of doing panels together?
Was it my overall smart-ass attitude regarding my perfect record?
Was it the lack of insight from the committee regarding our wonderful panel idea of writing the city?
For my own sake, I have to choose the last option. I'm sure I'll still go, but I feel like the writer of a Penthouse Forum article:
"I never thought this would happen to me..."
Laugh away those of you who call me arrogant. Just deserts are being served. Maybe we'll just do our panel in the hallway. You can't stop the revolution!
Posted by jrice @ 10:51 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
Semantic Web
Awhile back, I talked a bit about the semantic web as a cool media form for how it forges connections. Berners-Lee uses the word “cool” to describe the URI process functioning in his semantic web. Collin noted how critique of this kind of web is based on its commercial appeal. True. But I never find the commercial/consumer critique too convincing, for popular culture and entertainment - as McLuhan noted - often makes for a good place to think broadly about rhetoric and writing (and remember how off The Frankfurt School is in its critique of popular culture).
Pulling up Amazon today brings me a nice semantic list of items the site thinks I'll be interested in:
The last one is really interesting since:
1. My VCR is unplugged (probably for good)
2. I'm not a Christian
But what can we do with these kinds of lists? The Breton method is that whatever doesn't belong together will belong together when put together. So let’s put ‘em together, eh?
The idea would be to develop from an Amazon semantic list a writing project which asks the writers to first research (watch, listen, read) the items, detail their specificities, note various personal relationships/anecdotes related to the items, find the patterns amid the details. Use these patterns to form a new composition – preferably on the Web.
That pattern would be cool for how it prompts readerly and writerly involvement at the level of association and connection. It would not be argumentative nor explanatory, but performative and demonstrative. Only by writing and reading the connections does any form of knowledge or idea develop.
This kind of writing, then, seems more appropriate for utilizing the logic of the Web than a traditional “design a professional website” or ‘analyze a website” assignment located in some variation of the new media/digital writing class popular in many places. These other kinds of assignments fail to recognize the logic of new media, which I think a semantic type of writing does.
Posted by jrice @ 01:55 PM EST [Link]
The DSL Crisis
The great DSL crisis has ended. How? I have no clue. After visits from SBC, and lots of phone help, and after taking apart the computer, putting it back, uninstalling, installing, I have it working on the PC right now. Right now. Maybe later no. This has to be a Windows thing. One minute adapter is there. Next it's gone. I'm loving the PowerBook more and more...
Posted by jrice @ 01:21 PM EST [Link]
Monday, September 6, 2004
DSL
Ok those who have better tech-experience than me. A little help.
Saturday I decide I want to see if I can run my dsl line through my powerbook. So I unhook the ethernet cable and plug in to the Mac. Great. Runs like a charm. I unhook and put the cable back in the PC. Shut down. Later I come back to the computer and no DSL. I try the powerbook again. No DSL. I drag out my Dell laptop. No DSL. My PC desktop is saying that my network adapter isn't there. How can that be? Suddenly it vanishes? SBC is supposedly on the case and checking from their end and the phone company's end, but anyone hear of this kind of thing before? You switch computers and suddenly mess up your modem or something?
Going back to dialup is not nice. Little help?
Posted by jrice @ 08:37 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, September 4, 2004
Early First Saturday College Football Thoughts:
It's early. Stay tuned for updates.
Posted by jrice @ 03:06 PM EST [Link]
Reading Slice (on my blogroll) makes me jealous. Look at the kinds of pizza one can find in the New York/Jersey area. My greatest food love is pizza. Not the cardboard you order on the phone and which arrives at your door in twenty minutes or its free. Real hand-crafted artisan pizza. Pizza Palace was my Gainesville love until it closed a few years back. The Ricotta Lambada. Oh man. That was the inspiration for my own ricotta cheese pizza (which I haven’t made in quite some time...hmmm…gives me an idea…)And Everybody's Pizza in Atlanta is great. But in Detroit? Nothing. There isn't any pizza. There are a few places which claim to make pizza, but none meet the challenge. I've crossed the border a few times to enjoy some of Windsor's pizzas. Most are decent. But when I read the reviews at Slice, I feel depressed. I've been content to make my own since '96 or so. A kitchen oven, though, never reaches the right temperature. I steam the oven, make all kinds of bases (I am the only one I know who makes a pizza sauce/base in the mortar and pestle), etc. Most come out good. But none can approach the pizzas of wood burning ovens that populate fine pizzerias. If the Detroit Message Board folks see this post, maybe they'll jump on me like they did to Shaviro. But let's face it guys, our city lacks good pizza. We've got other bases covered nicely: Arab food, sushi, Thai, a couple decent breweries, Indian...but no pizza.
Posted by jrice @ 11:34 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, September 2, 2004
John wants to know if community college folks should be informed by the same kinds of intellectual work the university folks are. I guess it's a good question when we frame it as one of differing student bodies. But I'm not sure what it is John is asking for. Since I don't see how comments work and are listed on his blog, and since he calls out my list of readings (Hey John!), I'll respond here. John (and since this is really for John, maybe I’ll just say “you”) writes:
The second premise assumes that CC comp courses differ in no essential or important way from university courses, so what is true for the U must be true for the CC. Again, this is an assumption.
It is an assumption, correct. But then you write: "University folks don't test it out by actually looking." And you lose me. We (and that's a big assumption, too, that there exists a "we" in the university) don't test what out exactly? Theory? Sure we do. Or at least, I do, and others I know. Pedagogy? All my work is about pedagogy, so I'm not sure again what the critique is. And pedagogy comes out of theory whether the theorist intends it or not.
I agree that there can be differences in the kinds of student bodies enrolled in a CC or university, but there can be differences in student bodies from one university to the next (and there are). And while the CC student enters with the stigma of "not being prepared," the instructor at the CC more times than not enters even less prepared. The CC systems are dependent on cheap labor and individuals with little to no experience teaching composition. There are the full timers like yourself with good credentials. But the CC often suffers worse than the university because of the kinds of labor staff it must employ to teach classes. Who will teach semester to semester for $2000 or less per course? A married woman not dependent on extra income (sounds bad to say, but it is a type of instructor targeted by schools). A recently graduated BA or maybe MA. Someone who can’t find work elsewhere. Someone who isn’t sure what the next step in life is.
So I disagree that the kinds of cultural capital I may feel important for the teaching of writing does not apply to the CC. There is already a huge gap in how much cultural capital many instructors have. When you write “CCs hire only fully professionalized faculty (though far too many have adjunct status)” – maybe in California. But not in Florida and not in Michigan. I think I can safely assume not in most places. It’s a problem many universities feel too.
Regarding my choice of readings and if they relate to the CC: The readings in the course I'm teaching are not inclusive, but meant to help new teachers develop some basic understandings of the teaching of writing, the conflicting and complimentary theories, and how many people are challenging traditional assumptions about teaching writing. They may apply to the basic writing course - and many actually do. Or they may also inspire teachers to think more broadly about pedagogy, to not be afraid to innovate, and to not be afraid or unwilling to challenge various assumptions we circulate about the teaching of writing.
Posted by jrice @ 08:25 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, September 1, 2004
Beach Boys
Summer ends and a string of Beach Boys tunes hits the airwaves.
"God Only Knows" - what makes the Beach Boys so odd is that underneath these romantic motifs and wholesome image lurks deep insanity. Brian Wilson's flip outs have become the legends of popular music. But they also stand for what was central to the Beach Boys in general. Lunacy. Break outs based on emotion without care to rationality. The inability to really be happy.
The greater lesson of the Beach Boys is how appearances deceive. The '60s belief in surfing, beach music, blanket bingos, lasting relationships... yields to dark fantasies, obsession, and manic compulsive behavior. The lyrics seem so simple and touching:
If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on, believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would livin' do me
God only knows what I'd be without you
Nice, eh? Touching. What would I do without you? But the constant repetition (this is pretty much the whole song) of these words speaks to the real insanity lurking. This person is having a break down. And maybe s/he means the words/maybe not...maybe s/he follows up this chant with outlandish acts (like Dennis Wilson drowning/Brian Wilson on drugs/something else entirely), but saying them over and over like a mantra hides the anxiety beneath. "I fixate because I don't know what I'd be without you..."This is a pedagogy of anxiety. It's also a pedagogy not far removed from academia where fantasies and illusions often reign in hallways, classrooms, etc. Beach Boys for Dummies? Maybe.
Posted by jrice @ 12:51 PM EST [Link]
