Syllabus Depression July 3, 2007
Posted by kmiddleton in pedagogy, reading.5 comments
The time is nigh, says the gentle bookstore manager. If I want books in time for fall classes, I have to order them this week. I know, I know. All of you probably ordered books in April, when bookstores request this kind of information. But choosing texts for a class always sends me into a tizzy, even when I’ve taught the course before. There is a beautiful moment before the books are ordered, when the course is ephemeral and perfect; it can be anything and it has a million possibilities. Putting in a book order always feels like foreclosing on those possibilities—like locking in the destiny of the class.
In the fall, I’ll be teaching a course to the English majors on Postmodernism. Cripes, but I love this course. In the past, I’ve taught it as an introduction to the various definitions of the era. (In point of fact, I’ve always wanted to call it “What the hell is Postmodernism?”, but have always been discouraged by the idea of that appearing on the students’ transcripts.) I like to play the Jameson definition off of Lyotard, Hutcheon off of Baudrillard, and wrap up with the move toward cultural studies. I also have experimented with using a variety of texts, so in the past we’ve done a fair number of novels (DeLillo’s White Noise, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama), as well as photography (Cindy Sherman and Nikki Lee), as well as film (Cronenberg’s Existenz and Fincher’s Fight Club), as well as architecture (Learning from Las Vegas), and a graphic novel (Watchmen, my old pal). Strangely enough, the students often find themselves leaving the course without a clear handle on the postmodern. Jeez, I can’t imagine why!! [That last part was sarcastic, yes?]
So, this time around, I think I’ve got to stop with the freewheeling ride through the postmodern amusement park and create some handholds. Hello, mixed metaphor! But how do you choose? Because the handholds you pick determine the definition, and the texts you end up teaching. So, I could go with the old favorites: epistemological and ontological uncertainty. That would encompass a great deal, and I could do some old favorites (historiographic metafiction, for instance) and some new favorites (Memento, anyone?). That’s a bit broad, however. So how about a thematic handful of ideas: subjectivity, aesthetics, politics. All three can be found together in any number of texts (for the record, Watchmen is the perfect piece here–it’s a triple whammy. At least 6 of the students registered for the class have already read it, however, so I just can’t make myself do it. Rats.). But then how do you structure the course? Chronologically? Randomly?
The real biter here is that the thing I’m really interested in is the idea of postmodern love. I found this the last time I taught the class—it’s everywhere. It’s in the graphic novel (which I won’t name here again); it’s in Barth’s short story “Lost in the Funhouse”; it’s a major player in the DeLillo novel; in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; in Barnes’ History of the World… Essentially, it’s in all the texts that I want to spend a working on with students. What happens to love in the postmodern era?
In an essay from the 80’s (“Reflections on The Name of the Rose“?), Umberto Eco wrote:
The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, ”I love you madly,” because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, ”As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly.”
Are we still here? Can we only articulate love via irony? My instinct says no. If anything, I suspect that authors, filmmakers, etc. are becoming more and more invested in a rhetoric of love as salvation (Barnes) or damnation (Memento), or something else altogether (the new Sundance fave Crazy Love). Laura Kipnis is writing Against Love. Hell, there could well be a nice tie in to Leslie Fiedler’s seminal Love and Death in the American Novel. I’m so excited about this idea that I could spit. Sadly, I don’t have the wherewithal to pull this all together by fall semester, and I certainly can’t put off the book order any longer.
Alas, poor Postmodernism class. I don’t know it, though it seems like an infinite jest and excellent fancy.
[Just thought I'd do a little Shakespeare mangling there at the end for kicks...]
Breaking the Seal June 26, 2007
Posted by kmiddleton in reading, research.add a comment
I went to my lovely new air conditioned office today (hello, Northeastern heat wave!) with the best of intentions: move the hard drive, plug in speakers, and get down to work on an article. I’m nothing if not ambitious, upon the realization that it’s almost July, for crying out loud. JULY!! When did that happen? Wherefore art thou, June ‘07?
All of the above happened, and I had an additional bonus: I did a sound check with my colleague who has the great misfortune to have the office adjacent to mine. I wanted to see exactly how loud I could turn up the speakers before she could hear the bass in her office. I almost went so far as to draw a red line on the volume knob (shades of my high school stereo), but I think I can eyeball it. And with volume set at reasonable levels, I dove into the stack of reading that I’d set aside for the day.
It was a bit of a shock to me to realize how hard it is to read. I’d set the bar pretty low, to start. I was working with the classic piece by Gayle Rubin “The Traffic in Women,” which I had read and discussed extensively with my theory class in the spring. I really just wanted to refresh my memory about her ideas on kinship systems and exchange so that I could begin to think about the role and representation of rape in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. Rubin is smart, and she’s weaving together ideas and critiques of Marx, Levi-Strauss, and Freud, but she’s not Derrida, for crying out loud. On a word level, I’m not running for my dictionary. But despite having taught the piece 2 months ago (where, or where did June go?), I found myself stumbling over her gloss of “capital,” her explication of Mauss’s gift, etc. Holy crow, I’ve forgotten how to read!
In the end, I turned off the speakers, and sat back in the chair and concentrated really hard. Eventually, I was able to read a paragraph without having to back up and re-read, and re-re-read. Whew.
The moral of this story, I think, is that I’ve gone far too long without reading criticism. Apparently, my steady, summer literary diet of Allure, Blueprint, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction is the equivalent of Twinkies, hot dogs and a box of mixed varieties of Lay’s potato chips—it’s making the workout more like catch-up than marathon training. Apparently I need the theory equivalent of a multivitamin and fiber. What would that be, exactly? Nietzsche and Judith Butler?
So, from now on, I’m paying more attention to my reading diet. All suggestions can be left in the comments.
Convergence: VT and Native Speaker April 19, 2007
Posted by kmiddleton in asian america, reading, research.add a comment
Like virtually everyone in the nation, I find myself falling onto the cliche of “shock and horror” at the events at Virginia Tech this week. It’s a mix of disbelief; sympathy for the survivors, the vicitims and their families; and a serious set of questions about what it means to be a professor—particularly an English professor—at this moment in time. As more and more information comes out about Cho Seung-Hui, his writing, his behavior, and the faculty members that he worked with, it’s almost impossible not to ask: what would I have done? What should I be doing as a professor who sees student writing every day? How do we know when to be on our guard and when a student is “blowing off steam”? Moreover, what does it mean to be a Korean American professor right now?
I’ve been mulling that last question in particular since I’m in the middle of teaching Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker, a novel that details the complex inner life of a first-generation Korean American man. Henry Park, the protagonist, asks himself the important question about when, and under what circumstances, an immigrant is allowed to become an American. This seems the question that the media is struggling with now as well, as it considers how to approach understanding the incomprehensible: a young man massacring his fellow students and teachers. Much has been made of Cho’s Korean-ness; he was, after all, a resident of the U.S. under the auspices of a green card. As this short piece by NPR’s Robert Seigel points out, however, Cho spent more of his life in America than he did in South Korea. Despite this, many Asian American groups are bracing for backlash, and the entire country of South Korea has issued an apology for his actions. [The truly excellent, and in other circumstances riotously funny Angry Asian Man, has continuing, thoughtful commentary on media coverage of this event.]
Is Cho Korean? Is he American? Is he both? What does it mean to be both? What are the particular privileges that come with being both, and what kind of toll does it take on you? What is expected of you, and how do you begin to imagine your place in society? These are the questions that readers of Native Speaker struggle with, and the convergence of reading that novel and the tragedy at VT begins to indicate to me the ways in which literature really can help us to see the world in ways that we wouldn’t from our own perspectives. It’s not every day that I can argue that the study of literature is relevant, as much as I’d like to. Henry Park works as a spy—one who is constantly called upon to infiltrate groups, to learn and to observe and to fit in. It’s a powerful metaphor for societal assimilation, but Lee takes it one step further: Henry can’t separate his behaviors at work from those at home. He treats his wife like his other subjects. He discerns her desires, he provides for them, and he observes her and gathers information. It’s a troubling psychological model: one in which Henry is never un-self-conscious, never authentically himself, always waiting for someone to say he doesn’t really belong, to blow his cover.
Recently, the National Instititute of Mental Health conducted the first national study of the rates of mental illness and treatment for Asian Americans. The study, conducted in 2002-2003, is still in the preliminary stages of analyzing the data. One of the first conclusions, however, is that ” NLAAS data shows that, as a group, Asian Amerians have lower rates of mental illness than whites but seek treatment less often.” The article linked above goes on to cite economic status, generation, culture, racial prejudice, and social status of some of the significant factors that affect mental health. Are these all factors that play into understanding the character of Henry Park? Absolutely. Are they, by extension, factors that can help us understand the actions of Seung-Hui Cho?
Here, I’m brought up short. I can’t bring myself to try to understand the psyche of a violent and disturbed young man, about whose premeditation of violence we hear more and more with each passing hour. As someone who studies literature, I want to believe that they give us insight into the world around us. But is Henry Park really a useful model for “understanding” Cho? As a professor, I want to believe that access to information can make us better citizens. Could wider knowledge of Asian American resistance to mental health treatment have shifted the course of events? As a Korean American, I want to believe that the unreedemable actions of Seung-Hui Cho will not have a negative impact on the ways that the rest of the nation perceives of an ethnic group to which he belonged. Will his individual actions have ramifications for a larger population?
As someone who occupies all of these positions, I’m left with little but questions.
Peep This! April 12, 2007
Posted by kmiddleton in pop culture, reading.10 comments
Appropos of nothing, the bloggers at Feministe bring us this link to the Washington Post’s Peep Diorama Contest. Go look. I’ll wait.
Sadly, they don’t list the criteria for the best dioramas. Why, for instance, is “Peepman and BoyPeep” a finalist, when my favorite, “Reservoir Peeps” is a semifinalist? Is it the concept? The execution, so to speak? The freshness of the Easter candy?
We may never know how the secret cabal of judges awarded the grand prize. An enterprising soul, however, could easily turn this slideshow into a personality quiz. Which diorama do you like best? What does it reveal about your personality? For my money, it’s “Reservoir Peeps” and “Mommie Peepest,” two entries that I find far more compelling than the winner “Peeps are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Not that I have anything against Marilyn Monroe or the artistic verve that went into the piece. The other two, however, capitalize on a twofold appeal: first, there’s an obvious gesture toward the pop culture references and the necessity of a certain amount of cultural capital to “get” the joke (basically, it’s an ego thing, I admit it); second, and more indicative of my personal and theoretical inclinations, is the study in contrasts. The artists play upon the nature of the Peep, their sweet, empty innocence, their nostalgic appeal hearkening back toward childhood. They attach all of that to two of the most disturbing psychodramas of the last 30 years: Reservoir Dogs and Mommie Dearest.
Now, it would be quite a stretch to think about these dioramas as fitting into something like Adorno’s theory of negation in art (which we touched upon in the theory class yesterday). And in addition, we can be pretty positive that Adorno would have no affection for the lowly Peep. But in a radically dumbed down version of a negative dialectic, it would be interesting to play with the idea of the Reservoir Peeps diorama as a piece of art that refuses to resolve and justify the existence of the individual and the progress of history. How can a Peep exist in a Tarantino world? Where is all of that sweetness and light when someone’s ear is being removed? Is it enough to say that “it’s hard out there for a Peep?”
In a move that’s far less out on a limb, I hope that someone is tracking the ways that major print publications (the WaPo, the New Yorker) are coming up with ways to make their publications interactive via the internet. In what ways do these “outreach” programs activate their current readership and/or new ones?
GoogleReader-1; Bloglines-0 April 7, 2007
Posted by kmiddleton in new media, reading, whining.3 comments
In a post awhile ago, I enthused wholeheartedly about using Bloglines. Instead of spending my time combing assiduously through my carefully-constructed list of bookmarks, I could simply log in and read everything in one fell swoop. Bliss!
And then the Chuds came. Or, less metaphorically speaking, the semester hit full speed and I stopped reading anything online that didn’t relate directly to my classes, or First Year Experience, or American Studies, or electronic portfolios. All very interesting, but not quite the kind of thing I was going to add to my folders of RSS feeds.
Of course, then you know what happens: you let Bloglines go too long, and you can’t face going back in there. I had read some particular sites here and there, when I had time (because there’s always time for the Fug girls. Always.). I pictured combing through mountains of old posts for every feed I had. After all, I hadn’t logged into Bloglines since the end of February. Was it better to actually allot 3 hours to fixing all the folders, or better simply to mark everything as read and move on? I could neither face the idea of having to read everything nor could I stand the thought of missing something good by deleting it all. I can’t decide if this is a larger phenomenon in the information age, or simply indicative of my own paranoia about managing information…
This morning, I bit the bullet and logged in. Imagine my surprise to discover that many of the folders I had dreaded the most (Will Richardson’s, for instance, which is always packed with great ideas, and updated daily, if not more often) had 4-5 posts in them. Panic! Had people DIED?! A quick check of their websites calmed those irrational fears. They had been posting happily at the same pace. For some reason, however, Bloglines had just dumped the posts from the entire month of March. !!! A short tour of some blogs (done through bookmarks, of course) confirms that I’m not alone: apparently BL is particularly inconsistent with WordPress blogs.
So, that’s it. I’m jumping ship. GoogleReader has been happily capturing and holding the feeds from my students’ blogs all semester, without a glitch. Bloglines is dead to me. This does mean, however, that I’ve got to schedule some time to play with the other functions of GoogleReader. I have to imagine that it has something akin to my favorite feature in Bloglines—i.e., the clippings file (which I consider the internet’s gift to academics). But until I have time to sit down and play with it, everything’s going to have to pile up in folders. Ah, the circle of information life…
Should be Reading, Grading, Writing a Paper… April 1, 2007
Posted by kmiddleton in pop culture, reading, whining.4 comments
But instead, I’m taking personality quizzes on the internet. Courtesy of my colleague, Kate Laity, writer, medievalist, and pop culture maven.
So on the grand scale of goddesses, who am I?
You are most like the Egyptian goddess Isis.
The story of Isis illustrates the transformative powers of sorrow to create wisdom. When she was separated from her husband Osiris, she searched for him everywhere; she used the power of her love to bring him back to life and conceive a child of him, Horus. Isis was worshiped in ancient Egypt as the great mother goddess of the universe. Goddesses with similar attributes include Kuan Yin, Tara and Oya.
Want to try it yourself? Here’s the link.
Most of this I think we have to take as ironic; I hardly think that the power of my love for anything (with the important exception of really cute shoes) would bring it back to life. And I’m no mother goddess, that’s for darn sure. The connection to Kuan Yin, however, is an interesting one. I’m not quite sure how Isis maps onto KY as a legend; but if they are in some ways equivalent, then I can surely relate to the Kuan Yin legend about trying to save people from suffering and having one’s head split into eleven pieces. Often described as both a bodhisattva and the “goddess of mercy,” Kuan Yin has an interesting place in Asian American literary history: she is the narrator in Maxine Hong Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey. Readers/scholars have noted that as a narrator, she’s both a gentle observer of the shenanigans of the protagonist, Wittman Ah Sing, but also an incisive critic of his internalized racism and sexism.
Now that’s a vision of goddess-hood that I can get behind.
And now, off to grade! And read! And write a paper!
Convivial Meeting, Sans Drinking April 1, 2007
Posted by kmiddleton in pedagogy, reading.4 comments
On Thursday of this week, many of the English folk—students and faculty—were here, at the second annual English Department Symposium. A traditional symposium, a la the Greeks [see above, with thanks to Michael Lahanas for the picture], would have been filled with philosophy, conviviality, discussion, and drinking. Given current American laws, we were far more interested in the first three. Oh, and having women involved. And more clothing. And no lyres.
Originally, our Symposium came about because the faculty had felicitous, but rare, discussions in hallways and at lunch about exciting things we were doing in our respective courses. Why, we wondered, wasn’t there a venue to make public the great work that our students did? Thusly, the Symposium was born.
On Thursday, an intrepid school newspaper reporter asked a few of us “what do you think the Symposium does for the students, and what does it do for the faculty?” An excellent question. When we began, we had only the vaguest intuition that this would be a good thing; that we’d get something out of it and so would the students, we were sure. But what? That remained to be seen. As I watched the performances, readings, and presentations this year, however, I was blown away by both the quality of the work and the interactions among the students. Something important happens at the Symposium, I think, and it’s only now that it’s starting to register.
I’ve had at least three students comment to me about their individual experiences this year (and I’ll give them their privacy here, unless they want to be named!). One student mentioned how nervous she was prior to reading her work, and how proud she was of herself when she had done it. Another saw the Symposium as a place to have a “reunion” of one of the best classes she’s taken at the college. Finally, another student described how the event is a “support group for English majors” that addresses the ways in which they often feel like fakers until they see others engaged in the same actions. And, of course, there were really cool t-shirts.
All of these analyses speak to the ways in which a public event can stage important individual and communal developments for the students who participate. With a few slight tweaks, I’d say the same is true on the faculty end as well; we get to witness the breadth of our involvement with a large community of readers/writers/thinkers; many of us participate, either reading, running a panel, or performing, which puts us into the same situations as the students—we’re nervous and excited, too. So where’s the tweak? I think it’s this: we get to see students that we had early on and may never have in another class. In forums like the Symposium, we get to see the ways in which students have progressed in their ideas and who they’ve grown into over time.
It occurs to me, off hand, that the Symposium might be the Platonic ideal (hee!) of a conference. All exchange and conviviality and community, with none of the showboating and judgment. (There may have been evidence of these factors at our Symposium, but I didn’t witness it. So I’m sticking to the Platonic ideal theory.)
So, onward and upward for the Symposium! Our challenge for next year: how do we get students involved early on, so that the sessions best support their interests?
