What I did on my summer 'vacation'
No blogging recently because I have spent just about every available moment on the revision of my Old English grammar book, King Alfred's Grammar. I needed it to be done in time for the beginning of the semester because I am again using it as the sole textbook in my OE class. I'm glad I started the revision when I did because every possible thing that could go wrong or delay the project has, and up until Tuesday my back was really against the wall: it would be difficult to start the semester without the textbook.
But it's finally done. Thanks to Bruce Gilchrist's collaboration, the book is much better than the previous version. It now has a decent number of sample translation sentences for every chapter, it's got "reading practice" paragraphs (all of them about King Alfred) to go along with each chapter. It's got an appendix on sound changes (which Bruce wrote), a glossary of grammar terms (as well as the pre-existing glossary of Old English), and now all the long vowels in OE are marked with macrons (Bruce did that particular hellish job).
The electronic version is identical to the paper copy except in terms of macrons and the sound changes chapter, which will eventually be there, but not until I figure out why the stupid Word-generated html is causing Dreamweaver to crash when it tries to fix it.
The idea behind the grammar is that it is a completely stripped down, simplified OE grammar that gets students translating as soon as humanly possible. KAG does not assume that students know Latin, and it also doesn't assume that they know any formal Modern English grammar. I think my students understand inflected languages and cases far better than I did when I started OE (although I had a background in Russian, at least), because KAG takes time to explain parts of speech, word functions and cases. The entire thing runs 150 pages (so only 75 when printed double-sided) and students can reasonably get through the entire grammar in seven weeks and then move on to translating Old English. I myself go right from the sample sentences to Pope's Seven Old English Poems, and my students don't seem to have any problems, but I know other people like to spend some time on prose first, in which case combining King Alfred's Grammar with Richard Marsden's excellent Cambridge Old English Reader might be a good choice.
One press is looking into publishing KAG and another seems to be interested, so we'll see how that goes. My aim is for someone to publish it as a small, inexpensive, simple and straightforward book, the way Sweet's primer was in its time. We'll see.
Next week I should be able to unveil the new, much better, version of King Alfred, the learning-assistant program that goes along with the grammar.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Maybe I should just rename it Necronomicon...
Over the past couple of years I have given some conference papers that included work from, and made references to, How Tradition Works. After these conferences, a few people--often graduate students--have come up to me, asked me when the book was coming out and if they could get a copy. I've obligingly gone home, printed up a copy of the manuscript, photocopied it double sided, bound it, and mailed it off.
Not a single person who has received one of these copies has ever commented on it. I've never heard from most of them ever again.
Does this mean that the book is so bad that no one can stand to read it?
Is it so bad that people are embarrassed and don't want to tell me?
No. That couldn't be.
Maybe the book drives everyone who reads it stark raving mad.
N'ghai, y-nyah, y-nyah! N'ghaa, n'n'ghai, waf'l pthaghn -- Yog-Sothoth! Yog Sothoth! ....
(is this why my galleys haven't arrived yet?)
Over the past couple of years I have given some conference papers that included work from, and made references to, How Tradition Works. After these conferences, a few people--often graduate students--have come up to me, asked me when the book was coming out and if they could get a copy. I've obligingly gone home, printed up a copy of the manuscript, photocopied it double sided, bound it, and mailed it off.
Not a single person who has received one of these copies has ever commented on it. I've never heard from most of them ever again.
Does this mean that the book is so bad that no one can stand to read it?
Is it so bad that people are embarrassed and don't want to tell me?
No. That couldn't be.
Maybe the book drives everyone who reads it stark raving mad.
N'ghai, y-nyah, y-nyah! N'ghaa, n'n'ghai, waf'l pthaghn -- Yog-Sothoth! Yog Sothoth! ....
(is this why my galleys haven't arrived yet?)
Monday, August 08, 2005
Archeology of Knowledge
Blogging has been sparse of late as I've been racing to the finish line of a complete re-write of my Old English grammar book, King Alfred's Grammar. I need to get the book done in the next few days so that I have time to tweak the layout, print, copy and bind the books in time for classes.
[Brief technical discussion in response to comments on previous post: I use MS Word in all its horror for this project because I am trying to keep the html version and the hard copy version the same. This is not to say that I am using Word's terrible auto-generated html, but that I want the ability to cut and paste from the hard copy document to the e-version. If I were to do the layout and changes in InDesign (which is what I used to the design and layout for Tolkien Studies volume 1 , once I poured the Word files into InDesign, I would have a mare's nest of tracking and document control problems. Also, if KAG ever does get published (and to my shock and joy I now may have two publishers who both seem very interested in getting the book), the publisher will want the files in Word. So I use MS Word and try to keep the project small enough to avoid using "Master Document" (necessary for Beowulf and the Critics and How Tradition Works, avoidable with this project, which I'm fighting tooth and nail to keep down to 150 manuscript pages). -- And to Commenters: thank you for the excellent tips. Some of them I'd known and then forgotton, but most were new to me. ]
But on to the Archeology of Knowledge. As I revise this book I see more and more fossilized decisions upon which other structures have been built. For example, the book originally had (the website still has, though that's about to change) about six introductory chapters that were not numbered. Chapter 1 (which actually came seven chapters in) began with the first real Old English, the pronouns, and then progressed smoothly. But why did the book begin being numbered here ? How confusing was that? What was I thinking, I wondered.
And then I remembered one of the many work-arounds we were developing in the King Alfred computer program required sentences to be encoded with a difficulty level. That difficulty level was read back into the grammar book (which began as the interactive help files for the program), and so it made life easier to have Chapter 1 be the first chapter with practice sentences.
Now at this stage in the project, none of that matters or makes sense. But the structure had persisted for so long because so many other things (names of hyperlinks, help files, documentation, etc.) had been built on top of it. So now when I think about the manifest irrationality of the organization of Mitchell and Robinson's Old English grammar, for instance, I now immediately wonder what other structure or organizing principle was the foundation for the weird superstructure that now exists.
Blogging has been sparse of late as I've been racing to the finish line of a complete re-write of my Old English grammar book, King Alfred's Grammar. I need to get the book done in the next few days so that I have time to tweak the layout, print, copy and bind the books in time for classes.
[Brief technical discussion in response to comments on previous post: I use MS Word in all its horror for this project because I am trying to keep the html version and the hard copy version the same. This is not to say that I am using Word's terrible auto-generated html, but that I want the ability to cut and paste from the hard copy document to the e-version. If I were to do the layout and changes in InDesign (which is what I used to the design and layout for Tolkien Studies volume 1 , once I poured the Word files into InDesign, I would have a mare's nest of tracking and document control problems. Also, if KAG ever does get published (and to my shock and joy I now may have two publishers who both seem very interested in getting the book), the publisher will want the files in Word. So I use MS Word and try to keep the project small enough to avoid using "Master Document" (necessary for Beowulf and the Critics and How Tradition Works, avoidable with this project, which I'm fighting tooth and nail to keep down to 150 manuscript pages). -- And to Commenters: thank you for the excellent tips. Some of them I'd known and then forgotton, but most were new to me. ]
But on to the Archeology of Knowledge. As I revise this book I see more and more fossilized decisions upon which other structures have been built. For example, the book originally had (the website still has, though that's about to change) about six introductory chapters that were not numbered. Chapter 1 (which actually came seven chapters in) began with the first real Old English, the pronouns, and then progressed smoothly. But why did the book begin being numbered here ? How confusing was that? What was I thinking, I wondered.
And then I remembered one of the many work-arounds we were developing in the King Alfred computer program required sentences to be encoded with a difficulty level. That difficulty level was read back into the grammar book (which began as the interactive help files for the program), and so it made life easier to have Chapter 1 be the first chapter with practice sentences.
Now at this stage in the project, none of that matters or makes sense. But the structure had persisted for so long because so many other things (names of hyperlinks, help files, documentation, etc.) had been built on top of it. So now when I think about the manifest irrationality of the organization of Mitchell and Robinson's Old English grammar, for instance, I now immediately wonder what other structure or organizing principle was the foundation for the weird superstructure that now exists.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Update on the Crazy Sheep DNA Project
Well, it looks like we are going to go ahead and take a real stab at the crazy sheep DNA project. I just learned today that the Art History department at Wheaton just purchased a 15th-century Book of Hours, so with my friend in biology, Prof. Shawn McCafferty, I am going to try to figure out non-destructive ways to try to extract some sheep DNA. We'll try, for example, running a sterile probe along the edges of a manuscript leaf, running pcr and seeing if we've got any DNA. Then, depending on how much and how good it is, we'll try with smaller and smaller (or larger and larger) samples.
If that doesn't work I may buy a manuscript leaf on the open market and work in the other direction (i.e., clip a corner and see if that is enough, the continually shrink the sample until we get nothing).
Joachim Burger, et. al. "DNA Preservation: A Micro-satellite-DNA Study on Ancient Skeletal Remains," Electrophoresis 1999, 20, 1722-1728, notes that they were able to extract DNA from sample sizes of .3 grams of powdered tooth. That doesn't sound like much, but .3 grams of parchment would still be a visible, destructive removal that would prevent the project from going forward on any important manuscripts.
Also, it looks like someone at Cambridge may be trying the same thing: see this link. That would be bad news if our work were to be direct competition, since Cambridge has the Parker Library, and Wheaton doesn't. But I think our "Value Added" will be to design a database, set of conventions and visual representation of the data so that all data anyone can recover from any manuscripts can be easily compared. After all, just doing every leaf of the Nowell Codex (Beowulf manuscript) would take an enormous amount of work and funding and would generate reams of data. Hopefully, if this works and the methods can be refined, different groups all over the world will gather the DNA evidence, put it into some central database, and see what relationships can be extracted from the data.
And now, back to grammar book revisions, which have reached the formatting stage, in which my hatred of Microsoft Word knows no bounds. Oh, Word, how do I loathe thee. I loathe thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. I loathe your weird crashes, your incomprehensible formatting, your amazingly annoying pop-up icons (which are not and never were cute) that give me no useful information. Ah, Word, my soul writhes with disgust knowing that I have to click on a stupid button for every single section of a 22-section document if I want the first page of that section to have a blank header. Yes, Word, your inexplicable formatting screw-ups when I delete what is, in your logic-free design, the wrong blank line, your stupid inability to represent some characters, and your tedious, slow scrolling, they gnaw at me, Word. I consign thee to the depths of hell, and from the depths of hell I stab at thee...
Well, it looks like we are going to go ahead and take a real stab at the crazy sheep DNA project. I just learned today that the Art History department at Wheaton just purchased a 15th-century Book of Hours, so with my friend in biology, Prof. Shawn McCafferty, I am going to try to figure out non-destructive ways to try to extract some sheep DNA. We'll try, for example, running a sterile probe along the edges of a manuscript leaf, running pcr and seeing if we've got any DNA. Then, depending on how much and how good it is, we'll try with smaller and smaller (or larger and larger) samples.
If that doesn't work I may buy a manuscript leaf on the open market and work in the other direction (i.e., clip a corner and see if that is enough, the continually shrink the sample until we get nothing).
Joachim Burger, et. al. "DNA Preservation: A Micro-satellite-DNA Study on Ancient Skeletal Remains," Electrophoresis 1999, 20, 1722-1728, notes that they were able to extract DNA from sample sizes of .3 grams of powdered tooth. That doesn't sound like much, but .3 grams of parchment would still be a visible, destructive removal that would prevent the project from going forward on any important manuscripts.
Also, it looks like someone at Cambridge may be trying the same thing: see this link. That would be bad news if our work were to be direct competition, since Cambridge has the Parker Library, and Wheaton doesn't. But I think our "Value Added" will be to design a database, set of conventions and visual representation of the data so that all data anyone can recover from any manuscripts can be easily compared. After all, just doing every leaf of the Nowell Codex (Beowulf manuscript) would take an enormous amount of work and funding and would generate reams of data. Hopefully, if this works and the methods can be refined, different groups all over the world will gather the DNA evidence, put it into some central database, and see what relationships can be extracted from the data.
And now, back to grammar book revisions, which have reached the formatting stage, in which my hatred of Microsoft Word knows no bounds. Oh, Word, how do I loathe thee. I loathe thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. I loathe your weird crashes, your incomprehensible formatting, your amazingly annoying pop-up icons (which are not and never were cute) that give me no useful information. Ah, Word, my soul writhes with disgust knowing that I have to click on a stupid button for every single section of a 22-section document if I want the first page of that section to have a blank header. Yes, Word, your inexplicable formatting screw-ups when I delete what is, in your logic-free design, the wrong blank line, your stupid inability to represent some characters, and your tedious, slow scrolling, they gnaw at me, Word. I consign thee to the depths of hell, and from the depths of hell I stab at thee...
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Drout's First Law of Studying for Ph.D. Orals
In this post, Natalia discussed the stress of studying for Ph.D. orals. It is one of those nightmare situations where, no matter how much work you have done, you still can think of much more work you should have done.
Along that path lies insanity and exhaustion.
So I offer for Natalia and others Drout's First Law of Studying for Ph.D. Orals:
I came up with this law at Loyola Chicago, and, as far as I have been able to tell, there have been no exceptions. My friend Bryon Grigsby (now Dean Grigsby at Centennary College) is well over six feet tall and was not happy about the way Drout's First Law applied to him, but he read his stack, and he passed.
So, cheer up, Natalia. You now have a metric to use for your studying.
In this post, Natalia discussed the stress of studying for Ph.D. orals. It is one of those nightmare situations where, no matter how much work you have done, you still can think of much more work you should have done.
Along that path lies insanity and exhaustion.
So I offer for Natalia and others Drout's First Law of Studying for Ph.D. Orals:
If you read a stack of books as high as you are tall, you will pass.
I came up with this law at Loyola Chicago, and, as far as I have been able to tell, there have been no exceptions. My friend Bryon Grigsby (now Dean Grigsby at Centennary College) is well over six feet tall and was not happy about the way Drout's First Law applied to him, but he read his stack, and he passed.
So, cheer up, Natalia. You now have a metric to use for your studying.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
How Much Information is Too Much Information?
For the past couple of weeks I have been doing a major revision of King Alfred's Grammar, the grammar book I wrote to teach Old English when I became dissatisfied with the existing grammar books on the market. King Alfred's Grammar has had some success, I think: one of the students taught with the book has gone on to absolutely elite M.A. and Ph.D. programs and others have had success in Old English during their Junior Year Abroad study in British institutions. A fair number have gone on to success in translating Beowulf in independent study with me.
King Alfred's Grammar goes along with the King Alfred computer program, which is undergoing a complete rebuild this summer. King Alfred gives students a sentence to translate, provides help through the translation (by giving students, say, the case of a word, the gender, the number, the definition and, finally, the translation), tracks all of the student work and then provides customized feedback (i.e., "King Alfred suggests that you go over the Accusative Case" and then gives a link to a discussion of the Accusative). The original version of King Alfred worked, but it was hacked together using Filemaker and a whole bunch of proprietary cdml code and javascript and so hasn't held up very well to the changes in the web since 1999. The new version runs on a MYSQL database and is being written by a Computer Science professor and so is much more elegant and efficient.
At first the program and the grammar were intended solely for my students. Then I started giving away the html version of the grammar to anyone who wanted it (and it is on my website: http://michaeldrout.com ). But last year a press got interested in the grammar book, so I put together a prospectus, etc., and began collaborating with a scholar from the University of Toronto program, Bruce Gilchrist (who had emailed me out of the blue with an incredibly detailed and helpful critique of the grammar).
The press ended up not offering a contract for the grammar due to some equivocal readers' reports. These reports, I should add, were on the whole very helpful, and the press encouraged me very strongly to revise and re-submit, which suggests that someone on the editing staff is serious about publishing the book (a good sign). But the readers' reports also pointed up the biggest problem I have had in writing and revising the book: how much is too much?
The reason I wrote King Alfred's Grammar in the first place was that existing grammar books had too much of certain kinds of information and not enough of other kinds. My students did not need a short course in Anglo-Saxon dialectology, but they did need an explanation of what a direct object is. I wanted a book that was as stripped down as it could be (not the least because I had to photocopy the thing myself and front the money for books for the entire class) and I managed to get it down to 110 pages, generously spaced (thanks to MS Word's hideous layout capabilities and my desire not to re-lay-out the book in InDesign).
But as I am revising in light of the readers' reports, I am coming under pressure to add in more exceptions, more explanations, more details, which is making the book more like, say, Mitchell and Robinson's Guide to Old English (though even if I tried, my book couldn't be as confusingly organized as theirs). The whole thing that separates King Alfred's Grammar from everything else out there is its laser-like focus on the needs of beginning students. If I start providing all of the phonological details, if I try to go over syncope and breaking and i-mutation, I will no longer be able to get through Old English grammar quickly enough that we can translate Seven [Eight] Old English Poems by the midpoint of the semester and lines from Beowulf by the end.
But the readers for the press wanted something that works as a complete reference even as they very much liked the fact that I explained what a noun is. So I am stuck trying to cram things in or write appendices. Frustrating.
For the past couple of weeks I have been doing a major revision of King Alfred's Grammar, the grammar book I wrote to teach Old English when I became dissatisfied with the existing grammar books on the market. King Alfred's Grammar has had some success, I think: one of the students taught with the book has gone on to absolutely elite M.A. and Ph.D. programs and others have had success in Old English during their Junior Year Abroad study in British institutions. A fair number have gone on to success in translating Beowulf in independent study with me.
King Alfred's Grammar goes along with the King Alfred computer program, which is undergoing a complete rebuild this summer. King Alfred gives students a sentence to translate, provides help through the translation (by giving students, say, the case of a word, the gender, the number, the definition and, finally, the translation), tracks all of the student work and then provides customized feedback (i.e., "King Alfred suggests that you go over the Accusative Case" and then gives a link to a discussion of the Accusative). The original version of King Alfred worked, but it was hacked together using Filemaker and a whole bunch of proprietary cdml code and javascript and so hasn't held up very well to the changes in the web since 1999. The new version runs on a MYSQL database and is being written by a Computer Science professor and so is much more elegant and efficient.
At first the program and the grammar were intended solely for my students. Then I started giving away the html version of the grammar to anyone who wanted it (and it is on my website: http://michaeldrout.com ). But last year a press got interested in the grammar book, so I put together a prospectus, etc., and began collaborating with a scholar from the University of Toronto program, Bruce Gilchrist (who had emailed me out of the blue with an incredibly detailed and helpful critique of the grammar).
The press ended up not offering a contract for the grammar due to some equivocal readers' reports. These reports, I should add, were on the whole very helpful, and the press encouraged me very strongly to revise and re-submit, which suggests that someone on the editing staff is serious about publishing the book (a good sign). But the readers' reports also pointed up the biggest problem I have had in writing and revising the book: how much is too much?
The reason I wrote King Alfred's Grammar in the first place was that existing grammar books had too much of certain kinds of information and not enough of other kinds. My students did not need a short course in Anglo-Saxon dialectology, but they did need an explanation of what a direct object is. I wanted a book that was as stripped down as it could be (not the least because I had to photocopy the thing myself and front the money for books for the entire class) and I managed to get it down to 110 pages, generously spaced (thanks to MS Word's hideous layout capabilities and my desire not to re-lay-out the book in InDesign).
But as I am revising in light of the readers' reports, I am coming under pressure to add in more exceptions, more explanations, more details, which is making the book more like, say, Mitchell and Robinson's Guide to Old English (though even if I tried, my book couldn't be as confusingly organized as theirs). The whole thing that separates King Alfred's Grammar from everything else out there is its laser-like focus on the needs of beginning students. If I start providing all of the phonological details, if I try to go over syncope and breaking and i-mutation, I will no longer be able to get through Old English grammar quickly enough that we can translate Seven [Eight] Old English Poems by the midpoint of the semester and lines from Beowulf by the end.
But the readers for the press wanted something that works as a complete reference even as they very much liked the fact that I explained what a noun is. So I am stuck trying to cram things in or write appendices. Frustrating.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Bard of the Middle Ages: The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
Back in November I recorded a 'college course on CD' for Recorded Books. It was a great deal of fun, though I learned that standing in a booth and speaking for eight hours is a lot more exhausting than I had imagined.
A few people have written to say that they had been able to check out the course from their local libraries. Now it is available on the Recorded Books website, if you'd like to order it: Drout's Chaucer Course.
It's actually an expanded version of the Chaucer course I teach at Wheaton, which only covers the Canterbury Tales. Here I work through the complete Chaucer canon. There are seven CDs, each with two 35-minute lectures, and a course book that I wrote that includes summaries, essay and discussion questions and some really nice illustrations (which the Recorded Books people picked, and which, I have to say, are better than anything I would have come up with).
One of the important things I learned while writing and recording the course is how much time I spend in class on discussion. Student speaking takes up, if my calculations are right, more than 50% of each class. That's why we only cover the CT in a whole semester. I think that the students learn much more that way, and having to speak a lot keeps them awake (I hope).
By the way, I was only allowed two pages of notes for each lecture, so the talks are ex tempore rather than just read aloud. I think that makes them easier to listen to. Please let me know what you think.
Back in November I recorded a 'college course on CD' for Recorded Books. It was a great deal of fun, though I learned that standing in a booth and speaking for eight hours is a lot more exhausting than I had imagined.
A few people have written to say that they had been able to check out the course from their local libraries. Now it is available on the Recorded Books website, if you'd like to order it: Drout's Chaucer Course.
It's actually an expanded version of the Chaucer course I teach at Wheaton, which only covers the Canterbury Tales. Here I work through the complete Chaucer canon. There are seven CDs, each with two 35-minute lectures, and a course book that I wrote that includes summaries, essay and discussion questions and some really nice illustrations (which the Recorded Books people picked, and which, I have to say, are better than anything I would have come up with).
One of the important things I learned while writing and recording the course is how much time I spend in class on discussion. Student speaking takes up, if my calculations are right, more than 50% of each class. That's why we only cover the CT in a whole semester. I think that the students learn much more that way, and having to speak a lot keeps them awake (I hope).
By the way, I was only allowed two pages of notes for each lecture, so the talks are ex tempore rather than just read aloud. I think that makes them easier to listen to. Please let me know what you think.
On Productivity
(Setting aside the obvious irony of writing about "productivity" instead of, well, actually doing something productive like finishing the revision of King Alfred's Grammar).
For me the secret to productivity is keeping a lot of balls in the air. This approach has both positive and negative effects (some of which I'll discuss in more detail in an upcoming post on "Is is bad to have an 'eclectic' publication record?").
If one project runs into a stumbling block or a delay (such as having to wait for Interlibrary Loan books or articles), I can just move on to the next instead of waiting in frustration. But if one project gets hung upon a genuinely difficult intellectual problem, it's very easy to give in to temptation and move on to something else. This is particularly difficult when I have a lot of things to do around the house. Example: last week, when I was having trouble re-writing the section of the grammar book on word order and cases, I went down in the basement and built some shelves. It was certainly fun to do some carpentry (and my five-year-old now knows the difference between and rabet and a dado), but it did very little to get the grammar book revised in time to use it in the fall.
(I also lost some productivity points when I spent big chunks of Saturday and Sunday--well, when the children were napping or at birthday parties-- finishing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince -- but I really enjoyed the book and thought Rowling mostly avoided bogging down the way she did in Order of the Phoenix. Two future posts on Potter: "Rowling 'Technologizes' Magic'" and "My Prediction: Draco Malfoy = Gollum").
Overall, I think the standard model of humanities work--the professor sitting alone in front of a stack of books and a computer, wrestling the recalictrant material into a book or article-- is a productivity-killer. The Research Group, as done in the sciences, seems to me to be a far better spur to productivity. My wife was in a science/engineering research group (the Steel Research Group--although she worked on polymers) at Northwestern and I saw first-hand how such groups provide social and intellectual support. True, they can bog down in politics (usually over lab space and funding) and waste time like any other group of people, but in general they seem incredibly successful.
I have consistently tried to set up such research groups since I have been in graduate school, with varying degrees of success. At Loyola the attempt at a research group fell apart, wrecked on the shoals of Ph.D. student anxieties, egos and personality conflicts. At Wheaton I had one fairly large group of students that lasted for a couple of semesters, but in general I've had my best results working with one or two students on a specified project and with science faculty and students on longer-term projects. But I'm still trying to get a self-perpetuating research group going rather than having to re-start every year.
So, for example, I wrote a single journal article with my student Laura Comoletti; wrote an article and started a long-running bibliography project with my student Hilary Wynne; founded the journal Tolkien Studies with Prof. Verlyn Flieger and independent scholar Douglas Anderson and edited the first issue with students Melissa Higgins, Laura Kalafarski and Mariah Herbst; compiled another bibliography with my student Melissa Smith-MacDonald; started the Anglo-Saxon Medicine Project with Biology Prof. Betsey Dyer and student John Walsh and recently published in Anglo-Saxon Englandthe results of that five-year project with Biology Prof. Barbara Brennessel and her student Robyn Gravel.
In each case the collaboration spurs productivity not only by having someone else contribute to the work but also by forcing me to meet deadlines (i.e., have something to talk about at meetings). More importantly, the collaboration is great fun because two brains are better than one, and having someone to talk to about a project helps weed out stupid ideas. Also, the science approach to having to sketch out all the research in advance so as to ask for funding helps enormously in taming open-ended humanities projects.
I'm now working on the Sheep DNA in Parchment project with Biology Prof. Shawn McCafferty and exploring a cognitive neuroscience project (using EEG to try to better understand how people read poetry -- specifically poems with apo koinu constructions) with Psychology Prof. Rolf Nelson. I'm also compiling the next year's Tolkien Studies bibliography with my student Vaughan Sherrill and, if she decides to join the research group, my student Lindsey Ford. And I'm revising and expanding King Alfred's Grammar with Bruce Gilchrist from Univ. of Toronto.
For my own "productivity", I have to finish the grammar book, write an article on the construction of elvish, immortal bodies in Tolkien, revise my syllabi (for Math/SciFi; Rings, Swords and Monsters: Tolkien, Wagner, Beowulf; and Anglo-Saxon), re-do all of my websites, create an errata page for Beowulf and the Critics, record Beowulf as an mp3,write my lecture on Tolkien's medieval scholarship for Hillsdale College, revise my prospectus for The Dark is Rising Companion in light of Ms. Cooper's comments, write my own entries for the The JRRT Encyclopedia, and, if they ever arrive, correct the galleys for How Tradition Works, and...
Now I am so tired just thinking about all of this that I am going to go watch the Red Sox.
So much for productivity.
(Setting aside the obvious irony of writing about "productivity" instead of, well, actually doing something productive like finishing the revision of King Alfred's Grammar).
For me the secret to productivity is keeping a lot of balls in the air. This approach has both positive and negative effects (some of which I'll discuss in more detail in an upcoming post on "Is is bad to have an 'eclectic' publication record?").
If one project runs into a stumbling block or a delay (such as having to wait for Interlibrary Loan books or articles), I can just move on to the next instead of waiting in frustration. But if one project gets hung upon a genuinely difficult intellectual problem, it's very easy to give in to temptation and move on to something else. This is particularly difficult when I have a lot of things to do around the house. Example: last week, when I was having trouble re-writing the section of the grammar book on word order and cases, I went down in the basement and built some shelves. It was certainly fun to do some carpentry (and my five-year-old now knows the difference between and rabet and a dado), but it did very little to get the grammar book revised in time to use it in the fall.
(I also lost some productivity points when I spent big chunks of Saturday and Sunday--well, when the children were napping or at birthday parties-- finishing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince -- but I really enjoyed the book and thought Rowling mostly avoided bogging down the way she did in Order of the Phoenix. Two future posts on Potter: "Rowling 'Technologizes' Magic'" and "My Prediction: Draco Malfoy = Gollum").
Overall, I think the standard model of humanities work--the professor sitting alone in front of a stack of books and a computer, wrestling the recalictrant material into a book or article-- is a productivity-killer. The Research Group, as done in the sciences, seems to me to be a far better spur to productivity. My wife was in a science/engineering research group (the Steel Research Group--although she worked on polymers) at Northwestern and I saw first-hand how such groups provide social and intellectual support. True, they can bog down in politics (usually over lab space and funding) and waste time like any other group of people, but in general they seem incredibly successful.
I have consistently tried to set up such research groups since I have been in graduate school, with varying degrees of success. At Loyola the attempt at a research group fell apart, wrecked on the shoals of Ph.D. student anxieties, egos and personality conflicts. At Wheaton I had one fairly large group of students that lasted for a couple of semesters, but in general I've had my best results working with one or two students on a specified project and with science faculty and students on longer-term projects. But I'm still trying to get a self-perpetuating research group going rather than having to re-start every year.
So, for example, I wrote a single journal article with my student Laura Comoletti; wrote an article and started a long-running bibliography project with my student Hilary Wynne; founded the journal Tolkien Studies with Prof. Verlyn Flieger and independent scholar Douglas Anderson and edited the first issue with students Melissa Higgins, Laura Kalafarski and Mariah Herbst; compiled another bibliography with my student Melissa Smith-MacDonald; started the Anglo-Saxon Medicine Project with Biology Prof. Betsey Dyer and student John Walsh and recently published in Anglo-Saxon Englandthe results of that five-year project with Biology Prof. Barbara Brennessel and her student Robyn Gravel.
In each case the collaboration spurs productivity not only by having someone else contribute to the work but also by forcing me to meet deadlines (i.e., have something to talk about at meetings). More importantly, the collaboration is great fun because two brains are better than one, and having someone to talk to about a project helps weed out stupid ideas. Also, the science approach to having to sketch out all the research in advance so as to ask for funding helps enormously in taming open-ended humanities projects.
I'm now working on the Sheep DNA in Parchment project with Biology Prof. Shawn McCafferty and exploring a cognitive neuroscience project (using EEG to try to better understand how people read poetry -- specifically poems with apo koinu constructions) with Psychology Prof. Rolf Nelson. I'm also compiling the next year's Tolkien Studies bibliography with my student Vaughan Sherrill and, if she decides to join the research group, my student Lindsey Ford. And I'm revising and expanding King Alfred's Grammar with Bruce Gilchrist from Univ. of Toronto.
For my own "productivity", I have to finish the grammar book, write an article on the construction of elvish, immortal bodies in Tolkien, revise my syllabi (for Math/SciFi; Rings, Swords and Monsters: Tolkien, Wagner, Beowulf; and Anglo-Saxon), re-do all of my websites, create an errata page for Beowulf and the Critics, record Beowulf as an mp3,write my lecture on Tolkien's medieval scholarship for Hillsdale College, revise my prospectus for The Dark is Rising Companion in light of Ms. Cooper's comments, write my own entries for the The JRRT Encyclopedia, and, if they ever arrive, correct the galleys for How Tradition Works, and...
Now I am so tired just thinking about all of this that I am going to go watch the Red Sox.
So much for productivity.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Tolkien Encyclopedia: Many Fewer Remaining Entries
**UPDATE, 7.22.2005: List below updated to reflect most recent acceptances, etc. "NEW" means 'new to the list', not 'new to the Encyclopedia'**
That was fast! The response to my post on the remaining entries was fast and furious, with people just snapping them up. I'm really impressed by the quality of work that people sent via links in order to support their bona fides. There is so much good on-line Tolkien material (the problem is separating it out from the less good when all most folks use is the blunt tool of Google).
Since the list below was getting cluttered with cross-outs, here is a new, revised list (I've added a couple of categories, in particular one for parodies--including Bored of the Rings and The Soddit,).
NEW Artists and Illustrators' Influence on Tolkien 700
NEW *Carolingians 250
Cumberlege, Geoffrey 250
*Danish Language 500
*Denmark: Reception of Tolkien 500
NEW Dramatizations: Stage and Spoken 1000
German Folktale: Deutsch Mythologie 600
Grammar 500
Greece: Reception of Tolkien 500
Grove, Jenny 250
Old High German Literature 500
Parodies: Bored of the Rings, The Soddit, and others 1000
Penance 1000
Priestman, Judith 250
*Russian Language 500
NEW *Taniquetil 500
NEW Television: BBC Specials 750
Vale of the White Horse 500
Entries marked with an asterisk have been offered to someone but I haven't heard back from the person yet and so it is likely that these will open up. Other entries may open up as people who have accepted change their minds. Deadlines for entries are generally going to be in the early to mid fall.
Also, if you have suggestions for illustrations, I would love to hear them. There are to be 100 illustrations in the Encyclopedia, and I want them to be useful as well as beautiful. For example, there is going to be a map of Oxford with Tolkien's colleges, homes, Eagle and Child pub, etc. marked. There will be pictures of Pembroke and Merton colleges. There will be an illustration of hemlock umbels (not the coniferous tree, by the way) so everyone will finally know what Luthien was dancing under. Obviously there will be beautiful Ted Nasmith paintings and important illustrations, but I would love suggestions for materials that would help people improve their understanding of Tolkien's primary and secondary worlds, both England in the 20th century and Middle-earth.
**UPDATE, 7.22.2005: List below updated to reflect most recent acceptances, etc. "NEW" means 'new to the list', not 'new to the Encyclopedia'**
That was fast! The response to my post on the remaining entries was fast and furious, with people just snapping them up. I'm really impressed by the quality of work that people sent via links in order to support their bona fides. There is so much good on-line Tolkien material (the problem is separating it out from the less good when all most folks use is the blunt tool of Google).
Since the list below was getting cluttered with cross-outs, here is a new, revised list (I've added a couple of categories, in particular one for parodies--including Bored of the Rings and The Soddit,).
NEW Artists and Illustrators' Influence on Tolkien 700
NEW *Carolingians 250
Cumberlege, Geoffrey 250
*Danish Language 500
*Denmark: Reception of Tolkien 500
NEW Dramatizations: Stage and Spoken 1000
German Folktale: Deutsch Mythologie 600
Grammar 500
Greece: Reception of Tolkien 500
Grove, Jenny 250
Old High German Literature 500
Parodies: Bored of the Rings, The Soddit, and others 1000
Penance 1000
Priestman, Judith 250
*Russian Language 500
NEW *Taniquetil 500
NEW Television: BBC Specials 750
Vale of the White Horse 500
Entries marked with an asterisk have been offered to someone but I haven't heard back from the person yet and so it is likely that these will open up. Other entries may open up as people who have accepted change their minds. Deadlines for entries are generally going to be in the early to mid fall.
Also, if you have suggestions for illustrations, I would love to hear them. There are to be 100 illustrations in the Encyclopedia, and I want them to be useful as well as beautiful. For example, there is going to be a map of Oxford with Tolkien's colleges, homes, Eagle and Child pub, etc. marked. There will be pictures of Pembroke and Merton colleges. There will be an illustration of hemlock umbels (not the coniferous tree, by the way) so everyone will finally know what Luthien was dancing under. Obviously there will be beautiful Ted Nasmith paintings and important illustrations, but I would love suggestions for materials that would help people improve their understanding of Tolkien's primary and secondary worlds, both England in the 20th century and Middle-earth.
Monday, July 18, 2005
On NPR Tonight, July 18, 2005
I'm going to be on WBUR's "On Point" tonight talking about Harry Potter and Tolkien from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern (they tell me I'll actually start talking around 8:20 if you'd like to listen). I don't know if there's a streamcast, but here's a link to the show On Point : J.K Rowling's Literary Work ['nother update: that link gives you both wmv and realplayer options to hear the piece. even though they didn't put my name on the page, I'm on the program]
UPDATE: I've figured out the streamcast now: go to the main page of WBUR and then click on the "Listen Now" icon at the top left.
UPDATE AGAIN: Well that was fun. And it was very cool to be paired with another Anglo-Saxonist, Seth Lerer, who is a prof at my old school. I don't think the host knew we were both Anglo-Saxonists, though.
What's also very funny is that my dad, after finishing listening to my Chaucer course on CD, started listening to Seth's History of the English Language course on CD. So it must have seemed to him that the once-and-future commute had arrived...
I'll post a link to the archived show when it comes up.
I'm going to be on WBUR's "On Point" tonight talking about Harry Potter and Tolkien from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern (they tell me I'll actually start talking around 8:20 if you'd like to listen). I don't know if there's a streamcast, but here's a link to the show On Point : J.K Rowling's Literary Work ['nother update: that link gives you both wmv and realplayer options to hear the piece. even though they didn't put my name on the page, I'm on the program]
UPDATE: I've figured out the streamcast now: go to the main page of WBUR and then click on the "Listen Now" icon at the top left.
UPDATE AGAIN: Well that was fun. And it was very cool to be paired with another Anglo-Saxonist, Seth Lerer, who is a prof at my old school. I don't think the host knew we were both Anglo-Saxonists, though.
What's also very funny is that my dad, after finishing listening to my Chaucer course on CD, started listening to Seth's History of the English Language course on CD. So it must have seemed to him that the once-and-future commute had arrived...
I'll post a link to the archived show when it comes up.
Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Few Entries Still Unassigned
UPDATE: Please see post above for more timely information: Click Here. Entries below have been crossed out to show the state of things at approximately 10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 20.
UPDATE: I've crossed out those entries that people are offered to do. I also have a few more that aren't on the list, either because I was hoarding them for myself, or because I've just come up with them:
Valinor 1000
Towers 700
Penance 1000
Glorfindel 600
Morgoth's Ring 1000
Vale of the White Horse 500
Parodies: Bored of the Rings, The Soddit, and others 1000
To my immense surprise, the preparation of The J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia -- Scholarship and Critical Assessment is right now going relatively smoothly. Entries have been pouring in, and they are of very high quality.
I still have a few entries left. Some because people turned them down, others because people didn't respond to emails or (and this happened in a number of cases) I just couldn't track down a functioning email address. So, if you are interested, drop me an email.
Herewith the list of the few remaining entries, followed by planned word counts:
Alcuin 250
Artists and Illustrators' Influence on Tolkien 700
Class in Tolkien's Works 750
Cumberlege, Geoffrey 250
Danes: Contributions to English Culture 250
Danish Language 500
Denmark: Reception of Tolkien 500
Elements 500
Elendilmir 500
Finwë and Miriel 500
German Folktale: Deutsch Mythologie 600
Grammar 500
Greece: Reception of Tolkien 500
Grove, Jenny 250
Koivënéni and Cuivinen 500
Latin Language 1000
North Borneo, Reception of Tolkien 500
Obituary for Henry Bradley 500
Old High German 750
Old High German Literature 500
Priestman, Judith 250
Rhyme Schemes and Meter 1000
Rhyming Poetry 500
Russian Language 500
Thingol, Elwe, Elu Singollo 500
Tolkien Scholarship: Institutions 2000
Viking Raids 250
War of the Jewels 1000
War of the Ring 1000
Wolvercote Cemetery 250
Health and Medicine 500
[An update on Sheep DNA -- which, I know, is all you really want to read about, will be coming later today or tomorrow after I finish reading some more scientific papers.]
UPDATE: Please see post above for more timely information: Click Here. Entries below have been crossed out to show the state of things at approximately 10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 20.
UPDATE: I've crossed out those entries that people are offered to do. I also have a few more that aren't on the list, either because I was hoarding them for myself, or because I've just come up with them:
Penance 1000
Morgoth's Ring 1000
Vale of the White Horse 500
Parodies: Bored of the Rings, The Soddit, and others 1000
To my immense surprise, the preparation of The J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia -- Scholarship and Critical Assessment is right now going relatively smoothly. Entries have been pouring in, and they are of very high quality.
I still have a few entries left. Some because people turned them down, others because people didn't respond to emails or (and this happened in a number of cases) I just couldn't track down a functioning email address. So, if you are interested, drop me an email.
Herewith the list of the few remaining entries, followed by planned word counts:
Cumberlege, Geoffrey 250
Danes: Contributions to English Culture 250
Danish Language 500
Denmark: Reception of Tolkien 500
German Folktale: Deutsch Mythologie 600
Grammar 500
Greece: Reception of Tolkien 500
Grove, Jenny 250
Old High German Literature 500
Priestman, Judith 250
Russian Language 500
[An update on Sheep DNA -- which, I know, is all you really want to read about, will be coming later today or tomorrow after I finish reading some more scientific papers.]
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
The Crazy Sheep Project
You know, I've devoted a big portion of my scholarship to trying to understand how traditions work. Does anyone care? Noooo. But mention some crazy project about extracting sheep DNA from parchment and suddenly I'm getting all kinds of amazing suggestions and encouragement.
Spouse: "You're going to be known as the Crazy Sheep DNA Guy."
She's probably right. But anything that this many people respond to (and which, honestly, I find really interesting), is worth pursuing a bit. So I'm conferring with my friends in Biology (one of whom does molecular phylogenetics for fish, so he knows about extracting DNA and figuring out the relationships implied by shared error, etc--which, by the way, textual scholars invented independently and hundreds of years before biologists began using the same techniques for phylogenetics). I'm also talking to my boss, Wheaton's Provost, and the Grants Office.
This, by the way, is one of the amazingly great things about Wheaton. I can mosey over to the Science Center and chat with friends and put together a proposal not only with no resistance, but with excitement and encouragement. When I mentioned to a friend who was working on a large-scale research project in England that the biologists at her institution might be able to help with some of the data analysis, she responded: "But they won't respond to an email and have no interest in meeting with us."
I understand how busy the biologists generally are (at Wheaton, they all seem, like me, to have three or four research programs going at once). But to assume that they won't return emails or phone calls and have no interest in collaboration.. weird.
Back to Crazy Sheep Project. I've done a little research and have found that ovine DNA has been extracted from parchment. There is a research group a Gottingen who have done some work (they are cited in this paper (in pdf) on DNA Recovery from 10th and 11th Century Cattle Bones. I'm waiting for things to come in ILL or through the electronic search process (I can't get my VPN to work with Mac Tiger, so I have to go on to campus and do the e-lit searches for the science databases).
The real limiting factor will be whether or not you can get sheep DNA from a "non-invasive" test. If I can rub a sterile probe on a few follicles or run a stick down the edge of a leaf and then use RAPD-PCR and get good data, then I think the project can work. But there is no way that any of the libraries are going to let me remove any amount of material from the leaves. And they'd be right not to. Those manuscripts are held in trust for future generations, and we can't nibble off bits of them.
I've pasted in below the brief description I've thrown together to show colleagues, Provost, grants office, etc. Obviously much more will have to be done, and I'll be pestering those of you who made such good suggestions for more help if the project progresses.
Manuscript Relationships from Ovine (and Bovine) DNA
Medieval manuscripts are made from tanned sheep hides (parchment) and cow hides (vellum). Ovine and bovine DNA has been recovered from similar materials. After the DNA was amplified using RAPD-PCR, individual animals were identified using STR profiling. Animal populations were also characterized using mtDNA and STR allele frequencies (Burger, Pfieffer, et. al. 1999).
Using ovine and bovine DNA sequencing, it should be possible to determine relationships between various manuscripts dating from the Anglo-Saxon period (c. 500-1066, with most manuscripts dating from between 700-1066). The animal DNA of each leaf of each manuscript (and leaves of single-sheet charters) would be sequenced and the identifying information entered into a database. This data could then be used to identify relationships between various manuscripts. Individual animals that were used in multiple manuscripts would imply either that these manuscripts were copied in the same scriptoria or that there was a central supply of pre-prepared parchment made from the same herd. Manuscripts that have not previously been known to be related could be identified, and previously unknown connections established. For example, although the existence of a “royal writing office” is no longer doubted, study of manuscript linkages could demonstrate if that writing office produced materials other than charters and writs, and if there was any connection between the production of literary manuscripts. It may even be possible, depending upon what the data demonstrates, to determine a provenance or date for the Beowulf manuscript or the Vercelli Book.
Untangling the relationships between individual sheep and composite manuscripts would be a multi-disciplinary effort that includes mathematicians, biologists, paleographers, historians and literary scholars. I would also like to propose developing a graphical representation of manuscript information (including the identity of the individual animal source for each leaf) that would be similar to that developed for the Human Genome Project by Ben Fry at the MIT Media Lab . Such a representational convention would be useful for researchers even before the DNA data is assembled as it would allow much easier visualization of manuscript contents.
You know, I've devoted a big portion of my scholarship to trying to understand how traditions work. Does anyone care? Noooo. But mention some crazy project about extracting sheep DNA from parchment and suddenly I'm getting all kinds of amazing suggestions and encouragement.
Spouse: "You're going to be known as the Crazy Sheep DNA Guy."
She's probably right. But anything that this many people respond to (and which, honestly, I find really interesting), is worth pursuing a bit. So I'm conferring with my friends in Biology (one of whom does molecular phylogenetics for fish, so he knows about extracting DNA and figuring out the relationships implied by shared error, etc--which, by the way, textual scholars invented independently and hundreds of years before biologists began using the same techniques for phylogenetics). I'm also talking to my boss, Wheaton's Provost, and the Grants Office.
This, by the way, is one of the amazingly great things about Wheaton. I can mosey over to the Science Center and chat with friends and put together a proposal not only with no resistance, but with excitement and encouragement. When I mentioned to a friend who was working on a large-scale research project in England that the biologists at her institution might be able to help with some of the data analysis, she responded: "But they won't respond to an email and have no interest in meeting with us."
I understand how busy the biologists generally are (at Wheaton, they all seem, like me, to have three or four research programs going at once). But to assume that they won't return emails or phone calls and have no interest in collaboration.. weird.
Back to Crazy Sheep Project. I've done a little research and have found that ovine DNA has been extracted from parchment. There is a research group a Gottingen who have done some work (they are cited in this paper (in pdf) on DNA Recovery from 10th and 11th Century Cattle Bones. I'm waiting for things to come in ILL or through the electronic search process (I can't get my VPN to work with Mac Tiger, so I have to go on to campus and do the e-lit searches for the science databases).
The real limiting factor will be whether or not you can get sheep DNA from a "non-invasive" test. If I can rub a sterile probe on a few follicles or run a stick down the edge of a leaf and then use RAPD-PCR and get good data, then I think the project can work. But there is no way that any of the libraries are going to let me remove any amount of material from the leaves. And they'd be right not to. Those manuscripts are held in trust for future generations, and we can't nibble off bits of them.
I've pasted in below the brief description I've thrown together to show colleagues, Provost, grants office, etc. Obviously much more will have to be done, and I'll be pestering those of you who made such good suggestions for more help if the project progresses.
Manuscript Relationships from Ovine (and Bovine) DNA
Medieval manuscripts are made from tanned sheep hides (parchment) and cow hides (vellum). Ovine and bovine DNA has been recovered from similar materials. After the DNA was amplified using RAPD-PCR, individual animals were identified using STR profiling. Animal populations were also characterized using mtDNA and STR allele frequencies (Burger, Pfieffer, et. al. 1999).
Using ovine and bovine DNA sequencing, it should be possible to determine relationships between various manuscripts dating from the Anglo-Saxon period (c. 500-1066, with most manuscripts dating from between 700-1066). The animal DNA of each leaf of each manuscript (and leaves of single-sheet charters) would be sequenced and the identifying information entered into a database. This data could then be used to identify relationships between various manuscripts. Individual animals that were used in multiple manuscripts would imply either that these manuscripts were copied in the same scriptoria or that there was a central supply of pre-prepared parchment made from the same herd. Manuscripts that have not previously been known to be related could be identified, and previously unknown connections established. For example, although the existence of a “royal writing office” is no longer doubted, study of manuscript linkages could demonstrate if that writing office produced materials other than charters and writs, and if there was any connection between the production of literary manuscripts. It may even be possible, depending upon what the data demonstrates, to determine a provenance or date for the Beowulf manuscript or the Vercelli Book.
Untangling the relationships between individual sheep and composite manuscripts would be a multi-disciplinary effort that includes mathematicians, biologists, paleographers, historians and literary scholars. I would also like to propose developing a graphical representation of manuscript information (including the identity of the individual animal source for each leaf) that would be similar to that developed for the Human Genome Project by Ben Fry at the MIT Media Lab . Such a representational convention would be useful for researchers even before the DNA data is assembled as it would allow much easier visualization of manuscript contents.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Synchronicity
On Thursday night I was having a discussion with my wife about the next "chapter book" that our daughter might read.
"I think she'd really like The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet," I said.
Friday was library day, and for the first time in a while my wife was able to join us. In the foyer there is a shelf of donated books for sale for a quarter each. "Look," I said, holding one up.
It was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
"Another one of those weird coincidences that follow you around," she said. "Remember last year when you mentioned The Phantom Tollbooth, and it was right there in the pile the next day. The library knows what you're thinking."
Next morning, I read Glenn Reynolds: "THE INSTA-DAUGHTER is sitting next to me on the sofa, reading The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, a book that I liked a lot when I was 9."
Yes, just a weird little coincidence or two. Not statistically significant. But interesting all the same when you're caught up in it.
Blogging will hopefully improve tomorrow. I mailed off one new article (making that two new for the summer thus far) and did a set of proofs, then met with a former student, trained a new student how to order books for me from bibliographies, and tried to catch up on email. And cooked meatloaf, played baseball with 15-month-old son (who seems to bat lefty -- yay!!), read Lord of the Rings to daughter and watched the first two innings of the All-Star Game with her.
On Thursday night I was having a discussion with my wife about the next "chapter book" that our daughter might read.
"I think she'd really like The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet," I said.
Friday was library day, and for the first time in a while my wife was able to join us. In the foyer there is a shelf of donated books for sale for a quarter each. "Look," I said, holding one up.
It was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
"Another one of those weird coincidences that follow you around," she said. "Remember last year when you mentioned The Phantom Tollbooth, and it was right there in the pile the next day. The library knows what you're thinking."
Next morning, I read Glenn Reynolds: "THE INSTA-DAUGHTER is sitting next to me on the sofa, reading The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, a book that I liked a lot when I was 9."
Yes, just a weird little coincidence or two. Not statistically significant. But interesting all the same when you're caught up in it.
Blogging will hopefully improve tomorrow. I mailed off one new article (making that two new for the summer thus far) and did a set of proofs, then met with a former student, trained a new student how to order books for me from bibliographies, and tried to catch up on email. And cooked meatloaf, played baseball with 15-month-old son (who seems to bat lefty -- yay!!), read Lord of the Rings to daughter and watched the first two innings of the All-Star Game with her.
Monday, July 11, 2005
When Reality TV Has Penetrated Too Far Into the Culture
Spouse: [handing child a Boston Cream doughnut] This is a Boston Cream Doughnut.
Child: Where is the cream?
Spouse: Inside. Where the stink-beetles would go.
If you've had to watch Fear Factor with your child, you'll understand. If you haven't, count your blessings.
Spouse: [handing child a Boston Cream doughnut] This is a Boston Cream Doughnut.
Child: Where is the cream?
Spouse: Inside. Where the stink-beetles would go.
If you've had to watch Fear Factor with your child, you'll understand. If you haven't, count your blessings.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Scott McLemee's Meme
I normally have very little interest in this use of "meme," but the person who tagged me, Edward Pettit of BibliothecaryBlog, had such interesting answers that I decided to play along:
1) Imagine it’s 2015. You are visiting the library at a major research university. You go over to a computer terminal (or whatever it is they use in 2015) that gives you immediate access to any book or journal article on any topic you want. What do you look up? In other words, what do you hope somebody will have written in the meantime?
I look up the results of my insane "Manuscripts and Sheep DNA Project," which, miraculously, a whole slew of libraries have supported. (I got the original idea from Greg Rose and have expanded it since). Libraries holding Anglo-Saxon manuscripts agreed to allow scrapings of each leaf to be taken. DNA in the scrapings was amplified using Polymerase Chain Reaction and then sequenced. Comparison of sequences showed which piece of parchment came from which sheep and, furthermore, which sheep were related to each other. Untangling the relationships became a multi-disciplinary effort that included mathematicians, biologists, paleographers, historians and literary scholars--and people who knew a lot about sheep. The entire insane project was led by an obscure professor from a small New England liberal arts college after some foundation with more money than it knew what to do with --and lots of good connections to British and Continental libraries--decided to support it. The project demonstrated new links between manuscripts and monastic centers and paid huge and controversial literary and historical dividends when it demonstrated that yes, there was a "royal writing office" (they were using sheep from the same herd for their materials), and that the Beowulf manuscript has a leaf that came from the same sheep as a leaf from the Blickling homily manuscript.
[n.b. For some reader from a foundation: this is the kind of interdisciplinary, long-shot project that could sounds like a total wash out, but if it isn't, it will pay gigantic and unexpected dividends. Swing for the fences and help me get those sheep hides sequenced! ]
(2) What is the strangest thing you’ve ever heard or seen at a conference?
At my very first Kalamazoo I registered late and had to stay in French Hall, where they put the visiting athletic teams (you can imagine the condition of the rooms). At Kalamazoo, you share a bathroom with a connecting room. I did not (and still do not) know who was in that connecting room. One night, coming back from drinking at Waldo's, I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and heard loud noises coming from next door. Unmistakeably, the people were spanking each other. There was counting and "may I have another" involved. They appeared to be having a great time, and I've always thought that perhaps the next day their papers had a special quality of some kind.
The next year at Kalamazoo, obviously mindful of my previous year's experience, I opened the door to the connecting bathroom, wondering what this year's sexed-up medievalist neighbors would be up to. There was a glass of water alongside the sink. In the water were a set of dentures.
(3) Name a writer, scholar, or otherwise worthy person you admire so much that meeting him or her would probably reduce you to awestruck silence.
I've had the opportunity to meet some of my academic heroes, such as Mechthild Gretsch, Simon Keynes, Patrick Wormald, Michael Lapidge, Tom Shippey, and Joyce Hill, and none of them were intimidating (and I guess I wasn't too puppy-dog-ish). I'd be in awestruck silence in front of Ed Wilson, J. G. Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. Then I'd immediately corner said persons and try to get blurbs for a book...
(4) What are two or three blogs or other Web sites you often read that don’t seem to be on many people’s radar?
That Rabbit Girl: Tales of an Art Librarian was a student in classes I TA'd back at Loyola Chicago. Always interesting.
Sweat Flavored Gummi a possibly insane person who puts dead squirrels in her freezer and writes hilarious blog posts about paper mache hams. Her "angry letter of the week" feature is a thing of beauty.
Elyse Sewell's LiveJournal. My wifes' and my one pop-culture pleasure is ANTM. Elyse was a contestant on the first run of the show but was too smart to win. Her journal is witty and well-written as she describes her xenophilic life as a model.
Tiruncula, Mad For Caffeine Bourgeois Nerd, and Unknown Strains are all academics who don't seem to be jerks and can write well. That's good enough (and rare enough) for me.
I'm not going to officially "tag" anyone, but if I've linked you above, consider yourself invited.
I normally have very little interest in this use of "meme," but the person who tagged me, Edward Pettit of BibliothecaryBlog, had such interesting answers that I decided to play along:
1) Imagine it’s 2015. You are visiting the library at a major research university. You go over to a computer terminal (or whatever it is they use in 2015) that gives you immediate access to any book or journal article on any topic you want. What do you look up? In other words, what do you hope somebody will have written in the meantime?
I look up the results of my insane "Manuscripts and Sheep DNA Project," which, miraculously, a whole slew of libraries have supported. (I got the original idea from Greg Rose and have expanded it since). Libraries holding Anglo-Saxon manuscripts agreed to allow scrapings of each leaf to be taken. DNA in the scrapings was amplified using Polymerase Chain Reaction and then sequenced. Comparison of sequences showed which piece of parchment came from which sheep and, furthermore, which sheep were related to each other. Untangling the relationships became a multi-disciplinary effort that included mathematicians, biologists, paleographers, historians and literary scholars--and people who knew a lot about sheep. The entire insane project was led by an obscure professor from a small New England liberal arts college after some foundation with more money than it knew what to do with --and lots of good connections to British and Continental libraries--decided to support it. The project demonstrated new links between manuscripts and monastic centers and paid huge and controversial literary and historical dividends when it demonstrated that yes, there was a "royal writing office" (they were using sheep from the same herd for their materials), and that the Beowulf manuscript has a leaf that came from the same sheep as a leaf from the Blickling homily manuscript.
[n.b. For some reader from a foundation: this is the kind of interdisciplinary, long-shot project that could sounds like a total wash out, but if it isn't, it will pay gigantic and unexpected dividends. Swing for the fences and help me get those sheep hides sequenced! ]
(2) What is the strangest thing you’ve ever heard or seen at a conference?
At my very first Kalamazoo I registered late and had to stay in French Hall, where they put the visiting athletic teams (you can imagine the condition of the rooms). At Kalamazoo, you share a bathroom with a connecting room. I did not (and still do not) know who was in that connecting room. One night, coming back from drinking at Waldo's, I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and heard loud noises coming from next door. Unmistakeably, the people were spanking each other. There was counting and "may I have another" involved. They appeared to be having a great time, and I've always thought that perhaps the next day their papers had a special quality of some kind.
The next year at Kalamazoo, obviously mindful of my previous year's experience, I opened the door to the connecting bathroom, wondering what this year's sexed-up medievalist neighbors would be up to. There was a glass of water alongside the sink. In the water were a set of dentures.
(3) Name a writer, scholar, or otherwise worthy person you admire so much that meeting him or her would probably reduce you to awestruck silence.
I've had the opportunity to meet some of my academic heroes, such as Mechthild Gretsch, Simon Keynes, Patrick Wormald, Michael Lapidge, Tom Shippey, and Joyce Hill, and none of them were intimidating (and I guess I wasn't too puppy-dog-ish). I'd be in awestruck silence in front of Ed Wilson, J. G. Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. Then I'd immediately corner said persons and try to get blurbs for a book...
(4) What are two or three blogs or other Web sites you often read that don’t seem to be on many people’s radar?
That Rabbit Girl: Tales of an Art Librarian was a student in classes I TA'd back at Loyola Chicago. Always interesting.
Sweat Flavored Gummi a possibly insane person who puts dead squirrels in her freezer and writes hilarious blog posts about paper mache hams. Her "angry letter of the week" feature is a thing of beauty.
Elyse Sewell's LiveJournal. My wifes' and my one pop-culture pleasure is ANTM. Elyse was a contestant on the first run of the show but was too smart to win. Her journal is witty and well-written as she describes her xenophilic life as a model.
Tiruncula, Mad For Caffeine Bourgeois Nerd, and Unknown Strains are all academics who don't seem to be jerks and can write well. That's good enough (and rare enough) for me.
I'm not going to officially "tag" anyone, but if I've linked you above, consider yourself invited.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Journalist's Privilege?
A while back I was called upon to be deposed in a civil case. The attorney wanted me to give the names of certain other parties to whom I, in my capacity a professor/advisor/writer, had promised confidentiality. When I spoke with my attorney, he said that I did not have a choice: I had no right, whatsoever, to refuse to give the names. This is true for every citizen in any case: no matter what you have promised someone, you are forced to give out names or other information as long as it does not incriminate you (I was a witness in the case, not the defendant) and you are not part of one of a few privileged relationships: attorney/client, doctor/patient, psychologist/patient, priest/confessee, spouse.
Maybe I am naive, but I was shocked that this was the case. I'll bet many Americans would be equally shocked to find that they can be compelled by a court to diverge secret information about friends, neighbors, relatives, etc. But that's the way the law is and, as my reading of Anglo-Saxon law shows me, it has been that way for a very long time. The idea, presumably, is that trying to have a fair trial means that witnesses have to tell what they know.
I think the fact that many Americans do not realize that they can be forced to testify as witnesses (probably because they believe that the Fifth Amendment applies to witnesses as well as defendants) has led to some confusion in the public about the anonymous source case just turned down by the Supreme Court. If people all realized that they had no such privilege, they would, I believe, be even less supportive of the journalists who face jail time.
Now I understand why journalists use anonymous sources (though the big-time papers over-use them, but that's another post). The leakiness of the government is in general a good thing: although it makes it tougher to ride herd on the permanent bureaucracy, it also helps uncover malfeasance. But a generalized "Journalist's Privilege" is problematic. Unlike attorneys, doctors, and psychologists, journalists cannot be licensed by the government (First Amendment prohibits it). As Glenn Reynolds and other "citizen journalists" correctly argue, employment by a news agency can't be the basis for such privilege because there's no bright-line test to determine who is a 'real' journalist and who is not. Thus theoretically anyone could claim that privilege if he or she had "published" the information on a website, in a newsletter, or via a text-message alert.
But, the argument is sure to go, there's a difference between a reporter for the New York Times and, say, me, "publishing" my website to a few hundred readers. The two extreme cases may be somewhat different in terms of how many people are reached, but there are "journals" and "periodicals" with very, very restricted readerships. The people writing for them get counted as "real" journalists, even if they are writing as a "non-ferrous commodities" reporter with American Metal Market journal. You simply aren't going to be able to draft a clear dividing line without the aid of a constitutionally forbidden de facto license.
When I was in journalism school we were told simply never to use anonymous sources at the early stages of our careers. "Every elected official will tell you right up front 'this is all on background' or 'this is all on deep background," one of my professors (who had won two Pulitzer Prizes) said. "Your job as a reporter is to get information on the record. Anonymous sources are the point of least resistance and thus to be avoided at all costs in a finished story." His idea, which is a good one, is that anonymous sources give you an idea of where to look or what questions to ask, but then you write the story in such a way that you don't need to use them. My (very) limited experience showed that he was right. There are different rules for Big Journalism, or course, but I think that journalists would be much better off if they followed my professor's advice.
As for a generalized journalist's privilege, I don't think it's going to happen. If courts (and we the people, since we made the laws through our representatives) see limiting the number of people in the privileged witness class to be a good thing (which they/we obviously do), then I do not think it likely that they will allow a category as nebulous as "journalist" to become privileged. In some ways this is too bad, since the general public may lose out on important information. But on the other hand, if I, for the greater good of society, have to divulge some students' secrets about drug use or divorcing parents or sexual behavior or cheating or health problems (and none of those were part of the case I mentioned above), then it seems to me that just about everyone else should have to struggle with the dilemma of whether to follow the law or refuse, honor one's promise, and pay the penalty. I am relieved that I am not in that situation and glad that now I know I could be. Other professors should realize that they too are in jeopardy of being put between sworn oath and citizen's duty.
A while back I was called upon to be deposed in a civil case. The attorney wanted me to give the names of certain other parties to whom I, in my capacity a professor/advisor/writer, had promised confidentiality. When I spoke with my attorney, he said that I did not have a choice: I had no right, whatsoever, to refuse to give the names. This is true for every citizen in any case: no matter what you have promised someone, you are forced to give out names or other information as long as it does not incriminate you (I was a witness in the case, not the defendant) and you are not part of one of a few privileged relationships: attorney/client, doctor/patient, psychologist/patient, priest/confessee, spouse.
Maybe I am naive, but I was shocked that this was the case. I'll bet many Americans would be equally shocked to find that they can be compelled by a court to diverge secret information about friends, neighbors, relatives, etc. But that's the way the law is and, as my reading of Anglo-Saxon law shows me, it has been that way for a very long time. The idea, presumably, is that trying to have a fair trial means that witnesses have to tell what they know.
I think the fact that many Americans do not realize that they can be forced to testify as witnesses (probably because they believe that the Fifth Amendment applies to witnesses as well as defendants) has led to some confusion in the public about the anonymous source case just turned down by the Supreme Court. If people all realized that they had no such privilege, they would, I believe, be even less supportive of the journalists who face jail time.
Now I understand why journalists use anonymous sources (though the big-time papers over-use them, but that's another post). The leakiness of the government is in general a good thing: although it makes it tougher to ride herd on the permanent bureaucracy, it also helps uncover malfeasance. But a generalized "Journalist's Privilege" is problematic. Unlike attorneys, doctors, and psychologists, journalists cannot be licensed by the government (First Amendment prohibits it). As Glenn Reynolds and other "citizen journalists" correctly argue, employment by a news agency can't be the basis for such privilege because there's no bright-line test to determine who is a 'real' journalist and who is not. Thus theoretically anyone could claim that privilege if he or she had "published" the information on a website, in a newsletter, or via a text-message alert.
But, the argument is sure to go, there's a difference between a reporter for the New York Times and, say, me, "publishing" my website to a few hundred readers. The two extreme cases may be somewhat different in terms of how many people are reached, but there are "journals" and "periodicals" with very, very restricted readerships. The people writing for them get counted as "real" journalists, even if they are writing as a "non-ferrous commodities" reporter with American Metal Market journal. You simply aren't going to be able to draft a clear dividing line without the aid of a constitutionally forbidden de facto license.
When I was in journalism school we were told simply never to use anonymous sources at the early stages of our careers. "Every elected official will tell you right up front 'this is all on background' or 'this is all on deep background," one of my professors (who had won two Pulitzer Prizes) said. "Your job as a reporter is to get information on the record. Anonymous sources are the point of least resistance and thus to be avoided at all costs in a finished story." His idea, which is a good one, is that anonymous sources give you an idea of where to look or what questions to ask, but then you write the story in such a way that you don't need to use them. My (very) limited experience showed that he was right. There are different rules for Big Journalism, or course, but I think that journalists would be much better off if they followed my professor's advice.
As for a generalized journalist's privilege, I don't think it's going to happen. If courts (and we the people, since we made the laws through our representatives) see limiting the number of people in the privileged witness class to be a good thing (which they/we obviously do), then I do not think it likely that they will allow a category as nebulous as "journalist" to become privileged. In some ways this is too bad, since the general public may lose out on important information. But on the other hand, if I, for the greater good of society, have to divulge some students' secrets about drug use or divorcing parents or sexual behavior or cheating or health problems (and none of those were part of the case I mentioned above), then it seems to me that just about everyone else should have to struggle with the dilemma of whether to follow the law or refuse, honor one's promise, and pay the penalty. I am relieved that I am not in that situation and glad that now I know I could be. Other professors should realize that they too are in jeopardy of being put between sworn oath and citizen's duty.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
The deadly limbo of pre-publication
As some readers of this blog know, my book, How Tradition Works, is coming out later this year from Arizona Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies. The book was sent in to the press in the summer of 2002, accepted in January 2003, then edited and revised in both March and September of 2003. Since then I have been waiting. A brilliant friend read the manuscript and gave me a lot of good ideas, so I revised again in November of 2004. The galleys are supposed to arrive sometime this month, and simultaneously another brilliant friend is reading the manuscript, so it is quite possible that she will find more errors and problems for me before the galleys come.
Also, I have been trying to boil down three chapters (well over 160 pages) into a 20-30 page article for Oral Tradition. During this re-writing process, I've come across so many things that I can no longer bear, but fixing them would require re-writing the book. I'm simply not the same writer I was in 2000-2001, when the book was really written, and so my writing seems glaringly awful. I'm very proud of the argument, though, because even after all this time it seems to hang together very tightly. But revising this stylistic mess out of the galleys is going to be nearly impossible. [To be a little more sanguine, it's not a mess, per se, but a collection of grammatical stuctures, turns of phrase and rhythms that I don't use any more -- as such it will, one hopes, bother me but not my readers. ]
For a while I was very mad at my press for taking so long, becuase you know that some nimrod is going to attack me for not citing some particular work published in 2004. Sorry. Book was already written. But after speaking to the publisher and seeing the immense back-list of books that were in line in front of me. I understood. Another participant in the same conversation said "Why do you accept so many books when you have a big backlog?" Said the publisher: "People need tenure and promotion materials. If their materials are good, and can be reviewed anonymously and accepted, then they can have their work eventually recognized and, more importantly, they'll have something to give to their tenure committees." Good point, and a very humane approach. Plus, I'm sure he has to deal with a lot of authors whining about getting things accepted and published.
But my larger point is that still having this over me creates a liminal situation in which I'm not done or free of the book, but I also can't really work on it any more. It's driving me crazy. Only a few more weeks -- one hopes-- and it's out of my hands.
As some readers of this blog know, my book, How Tradition Works, is coming out later this year from Arizona Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies. The book was sent in to the press in the summer of 2002, accepted in January 2003, then edited and revised in both March and September of 2003. Since then I have been waiting. A brilliant friend read the manuscript and gave me a lot of good ideas, so I revised again in November of 2004. The galleys are supposed to arrive sometime this month, and simultaneously another brilliant friend is reading the manuscript, so it is quite possible that she will find more errors and problems for me before the galleys come.
Also, I have been trying to boil down three chapters (well over 160 pages) into a 20-30 page article for Oral Tradition. During this re-writing process, I've come across so many things that I can no longer bear, but fixing them would require re-writing the book. I'm simply not the same writer I was in 2000-2001, when the book was really written, and so my writing seems glaringly awful. I'm very proud of the argument, though, because even after all this time it seems to hang together very tightly. But revising this stylistic mess out of the galleys is going to be nearly impossible. [To be a little more sanguine, it's not a mess, per se, but a collection of grammatical stuctures, turns of phrase and rhythms that I don't use any more -- as such it will, one hopes, bother me but not my readers. ]
For a while I was very mad at my press for taking so long, becuase you know that some nimrod is going to attack me for not citing some particular work published in 2004. Sorry. Book was already written. But after speaking to the publisher and seeing the immense back-list of books that were in line in front of me. I understood. Another participant in the same conversation said "Why do you accept so many books when you have a big backlog?" Said the publisher: "People need tenure and promotion materials. If their materials are good, and can be reviewed anonymously and accepted, then they can have their work eventually recognized and, more importantly, they'll have something to give to their tenure committees." Good point, and a very humane approach. Plus, I'm sure he has to deal with a lot of authors whining about getting things accepted and published.
But my larger point is that still having this over me creates a liminal situation in which I'm not done or free of the book, but I also can't really work on it any more. It's driving me crazy. Only a few more weeks -- one hopes-- and it's out of my hands.
Monday, June 27, 2005
And another thing that's wrong with theory...
Richard Nokes of Unlocked Wordhoard comments in
this post on this post on Butterflies and Wheels by Mark Bauerlein on "Theory's Empire." The thesis of the article is that at one time theory was exciting and ground breaking, but now it is institutionalized and boring. Richard comments that
I wish I had said it as well myself. If the original impulse of theory was to shatter orthodoxies and challenge hierarchies (it wasn't all that, but that's the mythology), the current incarnation is tediously hegemonic. Yes, and your academic father's (or grandfather's) theory is never as interesting to you as it was to him. I'm sure deconstruction was really exciting back in the day, but, well, I don't live back in the day, and I don't care.
Bauerlein writes that "the cumulative result was that the social scene of Theory overwhelmed the intellectual thrust." That's certainly true, but there's a deeper problem: the theory evolved into elaboration for its own sake, turning a corner of literature departments into Philosophy-Lite ("Just as much deep meaning, but a third less logical rigor"). You can see how theory for its own sake could take over ("we have to get the theory right first, before we move on to the interpretation. If you interpret with an incorrect theory, there's no point"),
And there's certainly a lot of intellectual fun to be had in arguing the kind of abstractions that go along with literary theory. But in the end theory has alienated people from literature rather than drawing them in with all the cool new tools of analysis. Why? Because theory, as it is currently constituted, is no longer about finding things out but rather about obscuring them.
Last year I read a paper by a very, very smart student who had become a theory-head. He talked and talked about "imbricated discourses," and I could see that he understood what the theory he was using said. But he could not, when asked, explain why "imbricated" was a better description of these discourses than, say, "overlapping." "Why does one metaphor have more explanatory power," I asked. This wasn't a trick question. I was giving him a chance to show his stuff. But he seemed incapable of realizing that "imbricated discourses" aren't things--they're metaphorical descriptions of things. And that if "imbricated" is a better description than overlapping, you should explain why either metaphor has more explanatory power. "Imbricated" things overlap like shingles on a roof or scales on a butterfly's wing (I knew the word from entomology before it showed up in theory). We finally broke through this problem by talking about the actual things he was talking about -- the Battle of Maldon and Beowulf -- and how each poem treats concepts of honor and duty.
It's certainly possible that the student got something out of labeling these "imbricated discourses," but I think he got a lot more out of telling me, in his own words, how he thought the poems both touched upon and used the same conventions and ideas.
Theory is dying a long, slow death because it has become boring and opaque. When it comes to praxis, it's predictably pseudo-radical. When it comes to literature, it's predictable. Theory won't die out entirely because there is a quorum of young scholars who have staked their careers on it (I know someone who says "I am the person who does Lacanian analysis of female saints' lives; That's my niche" -- and a tiny niche it is...). But until something new comes along that opens up new avenues of though, that isn't bogged down in academic politics, and that has the capability of overthrowing the people who are currently on top (it doesn't always happen, but the frisson of a good Terror always motivates interesting work), theory will remain the kind of tedious thing it is: a rite of passage and a series of empty rituals that people perform without believing.
That is until my theory comes along in How Tradition Works and crushes all rival theories beneath its knobbed and armored claws....
Sorry. Summer cold and too much robitussin...
Richard Nokes of Unlocked Wordhoard comments in
this post on this post on Butterflies and Wheels by Mark Bauerlein on "Theory's Empire." The thesis of the article is that at one time theory was exciting and ground breaking, but now it is institutionalized and boring. Richard comments that
Like a lot of cutting-edge work, theory has always had a strongly smug narcissistic quality about it, and to suggest that in the 90s "the institutional effects of Theory displaced its intellectual nature" ignores that theory has always been strongly institutional -- else it would never have gained the slightest foothold in the Academy. The very nature of universities prevents them from ever studying (or observing) anything that is not institutionally oriented. French theorists gained prominence not because they were saying particularly smart or interesting things (though of course some were), but because academe happened to be institutionally headed by francophiles, in the same way that 19th-century German philologists ruled before two world wars made German politically suspect
I wish I had said it as well myself. If the original impulse of theory was to shatter orthodoxies and challenge hierarchies (it wasn't all that, but that's the mythology), the current incarnation is tediously hegemonic. Yes, and your academic father's (or grandfather's) theory is never as interesting to you as it was to him. I'm sure deconstruction was really exciting back in the day, but, well, I don't live back in the day, and I don't care.
Bauerlein writes that "the cumulative result was that the social scene of Theory overwhelmed the intellectual thrust." That's certainly true, but there's a deeper problem: the theory evolved into elaboration for its own sake, turning a corner of literature departments into Philosophy-Lite ("Just as much deep meaning, but a third less logical rigor"). You can see how theory for its own sake could take over ("we have to get the theory right first, before we move on to the interpretation. If you interpret with an incorrect theory, there's no point"),
And there's certainly a lot of intellectual fun to be had in arguing the kind of abstractions that go along with literary theory. But in the end theory has alienated people from literature rather than drawing them in with all the cool new tools of analysis. Why? Because theory, as it is currently constituted, is no longer about finding things out but rather about obscuring them.
Last year I read a paper by a very, very smart student who had become a theory-head. He talked and talked about "imbricated discourses," and I could see that he understood what the theory he was using said. But he could not, when asked, explain why "imbricated" was a better description of these discourses than, say, "overlapping." "Why does one metaphor have more explanatory power," I asked. This wasn't a trick question. I was giving him a chance to show his stuff. But he seemed incapable of realizing that "imbricated discourses" aren't things--they're metaphorical descriptions of things. And that if "imbricated" is a better description than overlapping, you should explain why either metaphor has more explanatory power. "Imbricated" things overlap like shingles on a roof or scales on a butterfly's wing (I knew the word from entomology before it showed up in theory). We finally broke through this problem by talking about the actual things he was talking about -- the Battle of Maldon and Beowulf -- and how each poem treats concepts of honor and duty.
It's certainly possible that the student got something out of labeling these "imbricated discourses," but I think he got a lot more out of telling me, in his own words, how he thought the poems both touched upon and used the same conventions and ideas.
Theory is dying a long, slow death because it has become boring and opaque. When it comes to praxis, it's predictably pseudo-radical. When it comes to literature, it's predictable. Theory won't die out entirely because there is a quorum of young scholars who have staked their careers on it (I know someone who says "I am the person who does Lacanian analysis of female saints' lives; That's my niche" -- and a tiny niche it is...). But until something new comes along that opens up new avenues of though, that isn't bogged down in academic politics, and that has the capability of overthrowing the people who are currently on top (it doesn't always happen, but the frisson of a good Terror always motivates interesting work), theory will remain the kind of tedious thing it is: a rite of passage and a series of empty rituals that people perform without believing.
That is until my theory comes along in How Tradition Works and crushes all rival theories beneath its knobbed and armored claws....
Sorry. Summer cold and too much robitussin...
Monday, June 20, 2005
Most Intellectually Exciting Books
A few folks took up my call to list their three most intellectually exciting books written in the past decade. Herewith the results of that challenge:
Triona Trog lists Finders Keepers by Seamus Heaney, Defying Hitler by Sebastien Haffner, and Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Este.
Natalia at Unknown Strains lists John Guillory's Cultural Capital, Colleen Lye's America's Asia, and Lisa Robertson's The Weather and also Anne Cheng's The Melancholy of Race. [must avoid Stanford/Berkeley rivalry joke about Berkeley Ph.D. chosing four when asked to choose three... (and to be fair, Natalia did choose Cheng only if she could get in a fourth)].
I thought also that Tiruncula had also posted her three, but I am being a doofus about getting into the archives and can't find it.
If there was anyone else whom I've rudely missed, please ping me and I'll correct.
I think that the difference between all of these books (and the three I noted) is remarkably huge, and it goes to show that intellectual excitement is a very individual thing. There are indeed massively influential works, but I wonder how many of them are genuinely exciting to a large group of people; maybe there're just popular, not deeply influential.
A few folks took up my call to list their three most intellectually exciting books written in the past decade. Herewith the results of that challenge:
Triona Trog lists Finders Keepers by Seamus Heaney, Defying Hitler by Sebastien Haffner, and Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Este.
Natalia at Unknown Strains lists John Guillory's Cultural Capital, Colleen Lye's America's Asia, and Lisa Robertson's The Weather and also Anne Cheng's The Melancholy of Race. [must avoid Stanford/Berkeley rivalry joke about Berkeley Ph.D. chosing four when asked to choose three...
I thought also that Tiruncula had also posted her three, but I am being a doofus about getting into the archives and can't find it.
If there was anyone else whom I've rudely missed, please ping me and I'll correct.
I think that the difference between all of these books (and the three I noted) is remarkably huge, and it goes to show that intellectual excitement is a very individual thing. There are indeed massively influential works, but I wonder how many of them are genuinely exciting to a large group of people; maybe there're just popular, not deeply influential.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Approaches to Comp
A commenter on this entry asked what I thought of Stanley Fish's article in the NYT wherein he says that he teaches comp by having his students spend the semester making up their own language, thus learning about the internal structure of a language. I agree pretty much with all of Prof. Blogger's comments, particularly his point that students really need to learn to read as the foundation of their learning to write. I try to teach "college-level reading" in my Wonderful Life class, with some success. I personally don't find teaching comp boring (at least in this class) because the students have never responded the same way twice.
But back to Fish's approach: I think it is very useful for learning about the structure of language (and something that J.R.R. Tolkien did a thousand times more effectively than Fish ever could, but I digress...). I also think it will not improve Fish's students' writing one iota more than any other approach would.
If I've learned anything from teaching comp for nearly 15 years at various places, I've learned that getting students to be better analytic grammarians--although a good thing in and of itself--does pretty close to nothing to improve the quality of the writing that they produce for other classes. This is partially due to the compartmentalization that Prof. Blogger notes (students will not always carry the knowledge they've gained in comp into other classes), but also because the production of new writing is not really closely connected to analytic grammar. Students produce, say, dangling participles not because they can't learn the rules about dangling participles but because they do not recognize dangling participles when they are engaged in real-time composition. What allows them to recognize and avoid dangling participles is an internalization of style cues, and that they get from reading. Instruction can help: I can point out the dangling participles and explain why they are confusing to readers, and some students will learn to catch them on revision. But you can grammar-drill your students all you want (and I have, and to an extent, still do, just because I love grammar) and they will still produce the same old errors when the pressure of writing about a difficult topic pushes them outside of their comfort zone.
It is a cognitive problem: have a student write a 'what I did on my summer vacation' essay and it will come out grammatically clean. Have the same student write an essay about a difficult topic and all of sudden there will be subject/verb agreement errors or comma splices or misplaced modifiers. I wish faculty would realize that not all of these problems are due to failures in instruction or student laziness: a good prorportion of them are caused by the students not being able to keep all the cognitive balls in the air at the same time: thinking about a difficult topic, constructing an argument, writing clearly and grammatically.
Thus in my Wonderful Life class I try to build up the different steps of an argument and let them get a little practice and confidence keeping one ball in the air, then two, then three. For that you need some content in a comp course, so that there are difficult ideas to think about, but you can't make the writing subordinate to the content. It is, like most things in teaching, a balancing acts. When it works, everyone is impressed. When it fails, well, there are balls rolling all over the floor.
A commenter on this entry asked what I thought of Stanley Fish's article in the NYT wherein he says that he teaches comp by having his students spend the semester making up their own language, thus learning about the internal structure of a language. I agree pretty much with all of Prof. Blogger's comments, particularly his point that students really need to learn to read as the foundation of their learning to write. I try to teach "college-level reading" in my Wonderful Life class, with some success. I personally don't find teaching comp boring (at least in this class) because the students have never responded the same way twice.
But back to Fish's approach: I think it is very useful for learning about the structure of language (and something that J.R.R. Tolkien did a thousand times more effectively than Fish ever could, but I digress...). I also think it will not improve Fish's students' writing one iota more than any other approach would.
If I've learned anything from teaching comp for nearly 15 years at various places, I've learned that getting students to be better analytic grammarians--although a good thing in and of itself--does pretty close to nothing to improve the quality of the writing that they produce for other classes. This is partially due to the compartmentalization that Prof. Blogger notes (students will not always carry the knowledge they've gained in comp into other classes), but also because the production of new writing is not really closely connected to analytic grammar. Students produce, say, dangling participles not because they can't learn the rules about dangling participles but because they do not recognize dangling participles when they are engaged in real-time composition. What allows them to recognize and avoid dangling participles is an internalization of style cues, and that they get from reading. Instruction can help: I can point out the dangling participles and explain why they are confusing to readers, and some students will learn to catch them on revision. But you can grammar-drill your students all you want (and I have, and to an extent, still do, just because I love grammar) and they will still produce the same old errors when the pressure of writing about a difficult topic pushes them outside of their comfort zone.
It is a cognitive problem: have a student write a 'what I did on my summer vacation' essay and it will come out grammatically clean. Have the same student write an essay about a difficult topic and all of sudden there will be subject/verb agreement errors or comma splices or misplaced modifiers. I wish faculty would realize that not all of these problems are due to failures in instruction or student laziness: a good prorportion of them are caused by the students not being able to keep all the cognitive balls in the air at the same time: thinking about a difficult topic, constructing an argument, writing clearly and grammatically.
Thus in my Wonderful Life class I try to build up the different steps of an argument and let them get a little practice and confidence keeping one ball in the air, then two, then three. For that you need some content in a comp course, so that there are difficult ideas to think about, but you can't make the writing subordinate to the content. It is, like most things in teaching, a balancing acts. When it works, everyone is impressed. When it fails, well, there are balls rolling all over the floor.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
