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This falls into the category of “those clever cheaters!” And actually, it’s also one of the reasons why, in the classes I teach, I tend to specify word counts rather than page length.
Composition Studies and the Writing Major
There was a “shout-out” about this on the WPA-L mailing list and I just thought I’d repeat it here:
The issue of Composition Studies that I worked on with some of my colleagues here at EMU has either come out or it’s about to come out. The WPA-L email says they’ve printed extra copies– I guess a “hot item” or something.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks in a public forum to all of my colleagues who worked with me on this, but especially Heidi Estrem. By the end of this project, she was the major organizer/force behind this project. So thanks Heidi!
Here’s what’s in the issue:
Estrem, Heidi. “Growing Pains: The Writing Major in Composition and Rhetoric”
Delli Carpini, Dominic. “Re-writing the Humanities: The Writing Major’s Effect upon Undergraduate Studies in English Departments.”
Clary-Lemon, Jennifer. “Hot Arctic: Major as New ‘Site’ for New Hires.”
McClure, Randall. “Projecting the Shape of the Writing Major.”
Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Curricular Activism: The Writing Major as Counterdiscourse.”
Shamoon, Linda and Celest Martin. “Which Part of the Elephant is This?: Questioning Creative Non-Fiction in the Writing Major.”
Schaffner, Spencer. “Grounding the Writing Major in the Socio-Graphemic Approach.”
Peeples, Timothy, Rosinski, and Michael Strickland. “Chronos and Kairos, Strategies and Tactics: The Case of Constructing Elon University’s Professional Writing and Rhetoric Concentration”
Taylor, Beth. “On Brown University’s New Non-Fiction Writing Program–A ‘Focus’ within the English Concentration”
Newman, Glenn. “Concocting a Writing Major: A Recipe for Success”
Scott, Tony. “The Cart, the Horse, and the Road They are Driving Down: Thinking Ecologically about a New Writing Major.”
Peele, Thomas. “What do We Mean by Writing?”
Lowe, Kelly. “Against the Writing Major”
Taylor, Hill. “Black Spaces: Examining the Writing Major at an Urban HBCU”
“Advice to Younger Men from an Old Man”
“Advice to Younger Men from an Old Man.” I don’t know entirely what to make of all of this list or where it came from, but much of it rang true to me and much of it made me chuckle. I’ll let you decide what is what with that.
Flyin' low-tech at the CCCCs
Now that the EMU English Department conference is wrapped up, it’s on to my next task of this busy semester, getting my presentation ready for the CCCCs in New York in two weeks. My talk is called “Content Management Systems and Writing Program Administration: When Your Website is Not Something You Have, But Something You Are.” The bad news is that I’m presenting on Saturday morning; the good news is that I’m presenting at all because the only reason I’m on the program is because I asked if there was any way for the powers that be at the CCCCs to reconsider my proposal. They did and I’m on.
The other piece of bad news: I found out yesterday that the “technology” I will have access to at the conference will be limited to an overhead. If I want an LCD projector it’d come out of my own pocket, and if I wanted internet access (God forbid!), it cost me over $800. For just my session.
First off, I think one of the reasons that my tech access is so meager (and why I had a hard time getting on the program in the first place) is because I submitted this proposal not in the “Information Technology” cluster but in the “Theory” cluster. I did this because I see my presentation about ident(ities) more than about computer things, though, as the title perhaps suggests, I suppose it is about both. In any event, I guess folks in the “Theory” cluster don’t need any of that stinkin’ technology….
I briefly considered trying to borrow a projector from school to take with me, but I don’t think I want to be responsible for it (e.g., what if it breaks, what if it gets stolen, lugging the thing around, etc., etc.), and I’m not sure the powers that be at EMU would let me take it anyway. So while I’ve come to rely on somewhat elaborate PowerPoint (and now Keynote) presentations for conference talks like this, I guess I’ll have to figure out how to go back to “old school” with transparencies.
It’ll give me a chance to figure out how to print on the damn things again….
RIP, Baudrillard
I had read/heard about this earlier in the week, that Jean Baudrillard died. To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about Baudrillard since I finished up my dissertation way back when. I won’t rehash all of that now (though, as part of my “blogs as writerly spaces,” I might have to), but some of Baudrillard’s thinking figured into my re-conception of rhetorical situation, particularly Baudrillard’s notion of the “hyperreal.” At the time, I spent a fair amount of time talking about his thin volume, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (this is a link to a reprinted version of the book, btw).
One of the critiques on this amazon.com page says (basically) that Baudrillard played too “loose and fast” with his thinking to be taken seriously by “real academics.” I don’t know about that. At the same time, I am not sure how much Baudrillard will be figuring into my future work. Or let me put it this way: I think Derrida will remain an important theorist for a long time, as Foucault has. I’m not so sure about Baudrillard.
BTW, I have often thought that Baudrillard would be a great name for a big wooly dog, and that Derrida would be a great name for a very aloof cat.
All the way to the final four, baby!
I’ve been friend with a guy who lives in Chicago and works for the Chicago Tribune (I’ll let him be semi-anonymous because of this) who I have known since my freshman year in college 23 years ago when he lived across the hall from me and when he had the excellent feature of air conditioning in his dorm room. And for about as long, Bruce and I have exchanged picks in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
I only see Bruce about once a year or so tops nowadays, but we still exchange these things. Anyway, I thought this year that I might invite my millions of loyal readers to also participate in this little final four set of brackets. There is of course no prize, other than bragging rights. But hey, what does it take to fill out the bracket, five minutes?
So, heck out the group I set up via Yahoo! Sports, and if it doesn’t work out right for you, let me know. The group info is ” unofficialstevekrause (Group ID# 68766), so if you sign up for Yahoo, you should be able to get yourself registered for the site. And may the best blogger win!
Slight update:
It seems that the Yahoo group I have set up requires me to invite folks– you can’t just sign up. Oh well. Anyway, I’ve invited some regular readers/friends, and I am willing to invite more. Time is of the essence though; I think you only have until March 15 in the morning to sign up!
Ending "Conversations"
I’ve been a bit of a stranger this week because I’ve been one of the coordinators (well, probably fair to say the main coordinator/organizer) for a conference we have here in the English department at EMU, “Extending Conversations.” This year, the theme was “multimedia,” though we meant that in the broadest possible sense– we had panels on sound poetry, “low tech” multimedia, children’s books, video games, etc., etc. The keynote speaker was none other than Dan Anderson. He gave a very thought-provoking speech (he’ll have to remind me of the link at some point), and was just an all-around good egg/good sport about the thing.
From my point of view, it was fun, kinda, I guess. A number of things happened in the last week or so that threatened to derail planned panels, promised helpers, finances and food supplies, etc., etc. I suspect this is par for the course for conference planning. I’m happy that it seemed to have come off relatively well, and that I was able to escape from the event with what I perceived as a majority of attendees being pleased with it all.
It’s not the kind of event that makes me think about ever hosting a much larger conference in my field, though. Though, oddly, the larger scale of that event might make it easier only because (I am only imagining here) there isn’t quite as much of a shoe-string budget and the way that the panels end up getting organized makes it easier to a) pull it all off in general terms, and b) less troublesome to get individual panels to run. Presenting at C&W is somewhat competitive, so, since you have more folks who want to present than can present, you don’t have to worry about panels not “making,” about twisting arms, etc., etc.
But hey, like I said, relatively speaking, I think it went off well. I’ll wish next year’s coordinator all the luck I can and I’ll pass along my wisdom.
And now, I think I’ll probably go to sleep for a while….
Is it the caffine or the withdrawal?
From BBC News comes “Coffee ‘no boost in the morning.'” From the article:
Those who swear by their morning caffeine fix say it wakes them up, and if they missed out they would feel sluggish and unable to get on with their day.
But the Bristol researchers, who carried out a review of previous studies into the effects of caffeine, say all the drink does is counteract the mild caffeine withdrawal symptoms people are experiencing because they have gone without the stimulant overnight.
First off, I don’t think I buy this. But second, who the hell cares? If coffee is my morning methadone, so be it.
Hmm… coffee….
Detroit People Mover Remix
Detroit People Mover Remix via Google Video (which means you have to click the link to see it).
I have never ridden the Detroit People Mover, which, as I understand it, is basically a monorail to nowhere. Kind of like on The Simpsons. For some reason, I think my parents actually went on this thing once… Anyway, a cool video.
The Police are trying to rob me
As a child of the 80’s and MTV and all the rest, I was and remain a fan of The Police. I even saw them in Cedar Falls, at the “UNI-Dome,” which used to have more shows than it does nowadays. When I was in high school, The Rolling Stones played there, so did The Who (I saw that show), REO Speedwagon (I know, but they were HUGE back then), and so forth.
So when I heard about the reunion tour The Police are going on this summer, I thought, “Hey, that might be kind of fun.” Annette is not as big of a fan as me, but I am sure she’d be up for it under the right circumstances, etc., etc.
So I looked with interest at the Ticketmaster page advertising tickets. So, for the show at The Palace, the “cheap seats” are $52.50; the middle seats are $92.50; the front row/on the floor seats are $227.50. Okay, fine– I know concerts cost a lot nowadays. But the only way you can buy tickets right now is if you join “The Police Fan Club,” and that costs $100 more.
$100?! To join a freakin’ fan club? Booo….