Author: Steve Krause

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Wanted: Assistant Professor, Computers and Writing, EMU

Or, as I was going to title this post, “jobs away!”

Since we now have an honest-to-goodness number for this position and are placing ads, I feel like I can officially announce that we’re searching for an assistant professor in computers and writing. Here’s what the ad will look like:

Assistant Professor, Computers and Writing

Tenure-track position in composition and rhetoric with an emphasis in computers and writing beginning in Fall 2009. We are seeking a colleague who values teaching, research, and service, and who is interested in joining a dynamic department which includes an active group of composition and rhetoric faculty in a nationally recognized writing program. Expertise in some combination of the following: new media writing, web 2.0 writing technologies, online and computer-mediated pedagogy, technical writing, digital rhetorics, and visual rhetorics. Candidates must complete PhD by Fall 2009. Submit a letter of interest, a CV, and a statement of teaching philosophy by November 1, 2008, attention Dr. Steven D. Krause, Department of English Language and Literature, 612 Pray-Harrold Hall, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48197.

I think this is going to be a fun search for us and a good gig for whoever we end up hiring. As I said in the email post I sent to a couple of the usual mailing lists, EMU is a great place to work. We’re a large, friendly, and diverse department, and I have fantastic writing program colleagues. This is not the kind of position where you would be one of two or three comp/rhet folks to do everything.

And geographically, I think we’re hard to beat: easy driving distance to Detroit and all of its “big city” pleasures, and practically walking distance (well, I exaggerate a bit) to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and all of the various things that one can enjoy in a quintessential “college town.” This might be a kind of shallow example, but when contemplating a move to another institution in recent years, my wife and I have asked each other “yes, but is there a Whole Foods nearby?” Well, a second Food (W)hole opens in Ann Arbor next week.

But in all seriousness: this is a good gig. And I speak from experience at having a previous academic job that was, um, not.

Anyway, that’s probably all I’ll be posting here about this until we hire someone. If you’re interested in learning more and/or you’ve got some grad students who might want to know more, send me an email at skrause at emich dot edu

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Viral blogging, Palin, dinosaurs, and who knows what else

Here’s a guy I want to interview/get a hold of for my Blogs as Writerly Spaces project: a blogger named Bob who maintains a blog called TUBOB. Perhaps you’ve heard some kind of rumor about Sarah Palin thinking that dinosaurs were “Satan’s Lizards?” That, as this post at Community College English nicely summarizes, was flat-out made up here by Bob Salsbury in a post called “Fake Governor Sarah Palin Quotes.”

From there, it morphed into a series of comments and posts on all kinds of “real” news sites (see the CCE link for some examples). It ended up in a CNN story on false Internet rumors about Palin:

And, as Bob notes on his blog, Matt Damon mentions the rumors about dinosaurs that circulated about Palin in this otherwise spot-on critique of her VP-ness (wait for 1:22 into the video):

So, I’m interested in this on at least two levels. First, as someone researching blogs and the way(s) in which “situation” works with driving traffic to blogs, motivating bloggers to write, shaping content and audiences, etc., etc., this seems to me to be another great example, something along the lines (bigger, really) than what I experienced with my blogging on the EMU strike. I can read some of what Bob has to say on his blog about the experience, and perhaps that will be enough for my book purposes, but it still might be interesting to interview him as a case study.

Second, the way this thing spread is kind of interesting because it isn’t quite the same thing as the “Obama is a Muslim” thing. Obama has said over and over and over and OVER that he is a Christian and more or less has been his whole life. He has answered those questions repeatedly. And, besides that, so what if he did have Muslim heritage or he was a practicing Muslim? I know this isn’t the political reality, but being something other than a Christian shouldn’t mean anything.

On the other hand, Palin has identified herself and has been identified with Evangelical Christianity of the type that reads the Bible literally, doesn’t believe in evolution, and that uses creationism to explain the dinosaurs. Further, as far as I know, she hasn’t answered Matt Damon’s or Maureen Dowd’s question about dinosaurs. I mean really; what does she think? Does she believe the creationism museum version of dinosaurs? Does she believe in evolution at all? Obama has been asked and answered questions about all kinds of rumors about him; but to ask Palin these questions is disrespect.

In any event, it’s an interesting viral blogging example and one I’ll keep an eye on, probably. Thanks for posting that, CCE.

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What’s happened to McCain (again)?

Finally, there’s a little bit of “strike back” against the lies of the John McCain campaign and the utter confusion and flip-flops of the candidate himself. Take a look at this new ad from Obama:

Thanks to Mark Maynard for posting this; and thanks also for posting this little snippet of video that was on Huffington Post where Karl “the meaning of evil” Rove even said that McCain et al are going too far.

I’d like to see something even a more aggressive, personally. I think it would be completely fair game for Obama to go on, look straight into the camera, and say something like “John McCain and his campaign are flat-out lying and they owe me and the American people an apology for sinking to these low and desperate tactics.” Or something like that.

And something needs to be made of this too: there was a story on NPR this morning with the misleading headline, “McCain: ‘I Know Americans Are Hurting Now.” Be sure to take a listen. The stock market dropped 500 points yesterday and a slew of economists and experts have been parading through radio and TV shows saying that this is the worst financial crisis since the great depression. And yet, as this story clearly reports, McCain was muddled at best. At the same time they were running an ad about the failed economy, McCain was at a rally in Florida where he said (more or less) “I still think the U.S. economy fundamentals remain strong.” An hour or so later, he gave a different speech at a different rally where McCain repeats the phrase “our economy is at risk” over and over. Un-freakin-believable.

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This might be the way I spend this weekend…

The original plan for this weekend was camping at the Pinery Park in Ontario, a really beautiful and very tent-friendly campground and park about three or so hours northwest of here. We (meaning us and Jim and Rachel and fam) arranged this trip months ago, and– of course– the weather is not cooperating. We’ve had stunning weather this week and next week looks acceptable, but of course it has to rain this weekend.

Anyway, I am thinking I might interact with a whole different kind of “nature” this weekend, Spore. I’ve seen various commercials and such, but I have to say that Will Richardson’s post about playing the game has kind of sold me. Here’s a quote:

It arrived yesterday, and I’ve spend a total of about 90 minutes playing so far, and I’m pretty much blown away. I have little or no idea what I’m doing, I’m sure, but my herbivore (you didn’t really think my spore would eat meat, did you?) paramecium has now evolved into a two-legged, funky-eyed, green, fruit-eating creature who’s growing a family and trying to figure out how to survive in a world with equally funky looking creatures who might be friend or foe. And while getting past the cell stage was pretty easy, this creature stage is already proving to be much more challenging. Just a few minutes ago, I was killed by some purple dudes who ganged up on me and seemed to chew my head off. Luckily, rebirth is almost instantaneous.

Interestingly enough, Will posted this a couple days ago, and he hasn’t posted since. Perhaps a bit too much Sporing?

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Dress-up day

Will in suit Here’s Will all dressed up for dress-up day at Greenhills. This was actually apparently the first of several dress-up days. I completely applaud the idea of making the kids present themselves nicely once in a while, though it did represent some shopping challenges for us. Happily, Will and I snagged the jacket, which was probably unnecessary (most of the boys just had nice shirts and ties) for $10.

It’s quite the adventure moving on to a new grade, a new school, a new system. We’re all getting up an hour or more earlier. Yesterday, Will was at his first drum lesson. Today after school, he’s going to tennis practice. And then tonight, it’s soccer practice. Oh yeah, Annette and I still have work too.

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Another example of the fine line defining plagiarism

This is being talked about on WPA-L right now, but the thing that makes it most interesting to me is that it might fit into a discussion of plagiarism in English 516 next winter: “In the Words of My Speechwriter…” by David McGrath in the Washington Post. I think that McGrath’s purpose here is to criticize politicians– especially the most recent batch, and most especially the speech that Sarah Palin gave at the Republican convention. Here’s a passage:

All those years ago, Harvard’s lawyer referred to the implicit understanding between teachers and students. Isn’t it even more important that there be a contract of honesty between candidates for high office and voters?

(and skipping ahead a paragraph)

Can voters this year be sure they learned something about the real Sarah Palin from her GOP vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last night, considering news that it was originally written by speechwriter Matthew Scully over a week ago for an unknown male nominee? The commissioned draft was subsequently customized by Palin and a team of McCain staffers in the 48 hours leading up to its presentation.

Now, I think McGrath is interested in a kind of authenticity that I don’t think is necessarily possible, at least not through writing alone. But what is a better question to me is the flip-side of this: do politicians (or much of anyone else) absolutely have to claim each and every word in a text in order to claim some form of “authorship?” I’m reminded of this post I had about a Friday afternoon about plagiarism at U of M and Chris Anson’s example of an often repeated phrase on braking. Is that plagiarism?

I don’t know. But my point/hope is to get people to contemplate that a bit and to recognize that plagiarism is anything but clear. And that would be the point of having something like this in 516.

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Why not enjoy some Scream ice cream?

I would post something interesting or relevant, but a) I’ve been pretty busy with the beginning of the Fall term, and b) I haven’t thought of much lately that would be all that interesting or relevant. So in the meantime, why not enjoy this Scream ice cream, an image my friend Chris sent me quite a while ago?

Scream for Ice Cream!