Seeking worldwise proposals!

Worldwise is a set of events sponsored by the ARHU department. Our next major event is going to be February 24th and it is going to be a set of presentations on ENERGY.

Check out the website for more details and send in a proposal!

http://www.worldwise.umd.edu/subpage_proposal.html

Assigned readings: to read or not to read

It has come to my attention that some students don’t do all of their course readings. I don’t know what to say about this other than I’m completely taken aback by the concept. Luckily, (and the sarcasm stops here), we have Nancy Bunge to tell us how to work through this crisis of education. Make the texts harder!

A statistic is floating around that says that only 26 percent of students do their course readings and the basic argument that spawns from this is that we are living in a new age and today’s students don’t want to engage difficult texts when there are so many other shiny exciting ways to learn. With tools like Google and streaming media and all that jazz, who wants to curl up in a corner and read?

Nancy says that’s all bologne and I have to say I agree with her.

Here are a few choice quotes from her blog:

“My classroom experiences suggest that blaming university students for this depressing development makes little sense — and not only because faculty members have the power to challenge students’ self-destructive behavior. I’ve discovered that a sizable number of my students enjoy engaging hard books. When I ask them why, they give the reasons that researchers are beginning to validate: Students believe that complex reading nourishes their brains, and they find the experience satisfying. Or, as one of my students put it, “The books were tough but made me think.”

and:

“The students recognize the same thing as those who worry about the study by the National Endowment for the Arts documenting declining reading skills. Despite their affection for visual media and technology, my students realize that if they do not grapple with difficult, abstract texts, they will miss an important dimension of human learning and thinking. As one student wrote: “I like a challenge when I am trying to learn. Putting in more effort yields better results.””

It’s not the quantity of the books that we read (although the more the merrier), but the quality of the book and the voracity with which we engage it. Only 26% of students do their course readings because only 26% of readings are of the level that they require close reading to understand the point and talk about them intelligently in class or in an essay.

I’ve been in courses that fail to teach me much because the readings were too easy. And to be fair I’ve also been in a course that fell apart because the readings were very difficult. However, I feel that the course failed because the students were not prepped appropriately. They assumed that it was going to be just another course that they could do a little bit of the reading an hour before class and coast on through. But by the time the students realized that these texts required a special level of engagement they had either soured on the course or were unable to catch up.

Another piece of advice that I have is to avoid easing students into difficult texts by progressing from easy texts to hard ones. Slam us right away with the hard ones so we can get a handle on the it while we are still figuring out how much energy we need to put into each course. Then you can ease up and let us apply the concepts to some more readable texts.

The moral of the story is that most students want to read difficult texts that change the way they see the world. Just be sure to wake them up when you assign one.

Am I wrong? Comment and let me know!

OED’s getting an overhaul…

Maud Newton, literary femme fatale and all-around delight, blogs (and twitters! how progressive) from the 80th anniversary of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Biggest development?  The third edition of the 20-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary will also be its last!  After publication of “the first comprehensive and up-to-date edition of the OED in one alphabetical sequence since the original edition of 1928″, the OED will (figuratively) close all 20 of its covers and move on to a bigger and brighter future as an internet-only text.

My prediction: the next groundbreaking dictionary to box up its dusty, leather cover in favor of a more hip internet form will be the Urban Dictionary.  Oh, wait…

Is the OED’s move to an exclusively electronic form good or bad?  Will this spell the end of civilization’s erudite ability to trace the exact diachronous history of a word?  Or simply the proletarianization of mankind’s intelligence?  You decide.

Nobel Prize in Literature

On Thursday, the Swedish Academy announced the 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature–Mr. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.  Yet, who is this mysterious (at least, in the annals of the collective American consciousness) J.M.G. Le Clézio?

According to the NY Times:

Mr. Le Clézio’s work defies easy characterization, but in more than 40 essays, novels and children’s books, he has written of exile and self-discovery, of cultural dislocation and globalization, of the clash between modern civilization and traditional cultures. Having lived and taught in many parts of the world, he writes as fluently about North African immigrants in France, native Indians in Mexico and islanders in the Indian Ocean as he does about his own past.

Mr. Le Clézio is not well known in the United States, where few of his books are available in translation, but he is considered a major figure in European literature and has long been mentioned as a possible laureate.

Sounds fancy and French.

Yet, as the article mentions, Mr. Le Clézio isn’t well known in the United States because we’re still in the 1700s and news and ideas just haven’t made it across the Atlantic Ocean.  Or, at least that’s what the Nobel Prize committee seems to think.

There were rumors floating around the internet that J.D. Salinger would be the next Nobel Prize laureate–the first American laureate since Toni Morrison’s win in 1993.  Yet, Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, says that the US “is too isolated, too insular” and doesn’t really “participate in the big dialogue of literature.”  Maybe the Europeans are just to exclusive for us “Joe Six Pack” Americans.  What are your thoughts?

Thoughts on Thursday’s EUA Event…

Thursday, October 9 was the English Undergraduate Association’s first event of the semester (well, second if you count the Indoor Picnic).  As Kenton mentioned in the last post, it was led by Linda Macri and Gerald Maa (Vivianne Salgado was, unfortunately, unable to make it) and revolved around the (related, unrelated, hyperbolic, polemic…) topics of War and Literature.

It was an absolute delight, and Linda Macri and Gerald Maa were two incredibly articulate and well-versed people.  It’s difficult to encapsulate the entire conversation, because so much was discussed and it was all so interesting.  I was particularly intrigued by the small tangent on Ursula K. LeGuin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.  It’s interesting to think of the art of storytelling as a gendered idea.  LeGuin is a big shot in the world of science fiction, so she is no doubt aware of the gender bias against female science fiction writers (not to mention the bias against science fiction as “literature” in general).  From what little I’ve read of the idea, it seems that LeGuin takes a bit of a swipe against male narratives, saying they’re less interested in human narratives and more interested in events and “action.”

Some very interesting topics of thought that came up from the discussion:

• Can you think of a “comedic” war story that is not anti-war?
• How often do women write epic battle stories?  Is there something to be said about the gendering of narrative that women reflect more on internal rather than external struggles?
• Why are people interested in war and it’s relationship to literature, anyways?

EUA Event: BOOKS! What are they good for! Absolutely nothing?

Hey all, I hope you had a good weekend! I know the semester is heating up for most people, exams and essays are starting to bear down on us in panic inducing numbers. But, if you can find the time there is going to be a great event put on by the English Undergraduate Association this Thursday at 5pm in room 1111 Susquehanna. You may have seen the fliers floating around Susquehanna, they are the ones with the big picture of a Nazi book burning titled “BOOKS, What are they good for! Absolutely nothing?”

Anyways, the event is part of our “Why Study Lit?” series and it is going to be a casual panel discussion featuring professors Linda Macri, Vivian Salgado and Gerald Maa. The panel is going to focus on discovering the relevancy of the representation of war in literature. As in, what effect, if any, does literature have on shaping our culture’s perspective on war? And does the resulting change effect policy? And if so, how?

• Professor Linda Macri is teaching a course this semester on war and the graphic novel. Examining how war is represented in comics and graphic novels will bring a unique dynamic to the panel. She also has a strong background in rhetoric as it pertains to fiction.
• Professor Vivianne Salgado is a native of Chile, and studied fiction for four years with Pia Barros at Ergo Sum, one of the most prolific literary workshops during Pinochet’s dictatorship. She is also the assistant director of the Jiminez-Porter Writer’s House.
• Gerald Maa is a graduate student at the University of Maryland who also teaches poetry and has received many awards for his creative writing. Maa has also developed a cult following of students who think he’s the best thing since sliced bread. Perhaps you should come and find out why!

There will be food and drinks. The details, once again, are Thursday, October 9th at 5PM in room 1111 Susquehanna.

Friday Fun: The Ig Nobel Prizes

Harvard recently hosted its Ig nobel prizes in which they present awards to the most bizarre research projects recently completed in academica. I especially like the literature winner, David Sims, who wrote a study called “You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations.”

I was equally as happy to discover that economists from the University of Mexico were able to, despite hours of grueling work, persevere and discover that “a professional lap dancer’s ovulatory cycle affects her tip earnings.” I was about to change my major until I found out that the research was conducted via a work-journal on an online web-site.

If you want to find out the rest of the winners The Chronicle has an article that includes links to the particular journals that published the Ig Nobel studies.

But, if you can’t access The Chronicle’s article, you can find one sans citations at network world

I would also like to give a nod here to Penn State Professor/Blogger Michael Berube for making me aware of what has since been my favorite subtitled essay of all time:

“Balancing the right to habilitation with the right to personal liberties: the rights of people with developmental disabilities to eat too many doughnuts and take a nap.”

Have a good weekend everyone!

Passionate Pedagogy

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education covered the story of a business professor facing federal charges for intercepting the e-mail of a student he was having an intimate relationship with for over eight months. The student is also pursuing a civil suit against both the professor and the university. The university has suspended the professor until the matter is settled. This incident reminded me of another article I read at the Dankprofessor’s Blog in which he cited an incredibly provocative essay by feminist bell hooks on erotic student/faculty relationships.

It was interesting to me that almost all of the comments in the Chronicle article were directly opposed to the thesis of bell hooks’ essay. The very first comment by Susan set the tone:

“Okay, boys—I know you will disagree, but here goes: a professor ( in a position of power) should not be copulating with their students. This behavior costs organizations many millions of dollars each year. Look where it leads one—now poor Stephan Gladuwacked is going to do a little time away from the public. All because he couldn’t control himself and discern right from wrong. Leave your students alone, already. Go find someone your own age and quit with the pedophilic tendencies.”

The last sentence struck me as quite out of tune with the situation. I don’t think that “pedophilic tendancies” is appropriate for a situation involving a 27 year old graduate student and a man in his early 30’s. That aside though, her argument is probably the one held by the majority and is not out of touch with the reality of the perils of such a situation. However, bell hooks keeps whispering in my ear with statements like:

“The vast majority of women who are heterosexual in this society are likely to be in intimate relations with men at some point in their lives who have greater status and power, however relative, given the nature of capitalism and patriarchy. Clearly, it is more important to learn ways to be “just” in situations where there is a power imbalance, rather than to assume that exploitation and abuse are the “natural” outcome of all such encounters.”

and:

“Some folks oppose faculty/student erotic bonding because they say it creates a climate of favoritism that can be deeply disruptive. In actuality, any intimate bonding between a professor and a student is a potential context for favoritism, whether or not that intimacy is erotic. Favoritism often surfaces in the classroom and has nothing to do with desire.”

Her argument is much more complex than what I can copy and paste here, so I recommend following the link and reading her entire essay. When you finish with that, I want to know. Do you think it is okay for a university to prohibit faculty/student relationships? Or, is it something that should be discouraged, encouraged, or ignored?

In Memory of David Foster Wallace

Following in the footsteps of most Interweb and print media outlets, I’ve decided that it’s only appropriate for us at On Purpose to post a quick in memoriam to the late David Foster Wallace.  I personally cannot speak too much for his writing, having only ever read one of his short stories, the beautifully entertaining “Little Expressionless Animals.”  It’s a behemoth of a “short” story.  It centers on a young, lesbian woman who is in the middle of a breakaway streak on Jeopardy (à la Ken Jennings).  David’s treatment of her sexuality, his sensitivity toward long-spun childhood traumas, and his on-point Alex Trebek cameo was just brilliant.  I can’t think of too many writers who could accomplish the same thing with such bravado and originality.

And what writer hasn’t spent his/her fair share of time staring at Infinite Jest as it mocks from the rosy-wooded shelves of Barnes & Noble.  That quaint puffy-clouded background.  The looming title.  Then one opens it up to find all 1104 pages of David staring back.  It’s easy to understand why he has garnered so much posthumous “genius” recognition.

But what is the relationship between this enigmatic persona, this “David Foster Wallace,” this man who in the last years of his life was racked by depression, and his writing?  Is it possible for a man with short stories such as “Death is Not the End” and “The Depressed Person” and “Suicide as a Sort of Present” to not be ill, in some way?  How much of David’s personal life was infused within his writing? (As a writer myself, I imagine a lot.)  Is his depression and subsequent suicide a by-product of his writing and the overwhelming expectations of his post-Infinite Jest fame?  (Perhaps.)  Is his writing something that stemmed from his depression, an outlet or a crutch? (Perhaps again.)

It’s impossible to ever know the workings of writers, let alone writers who are affected so strongly by depression.  There’s a natural inclination to point to his short story titles, to point to his interviews, to point to anything we can find and say, “See?  See? Look at how depressed he was.  How could we not see it coming?”

Unfortunately, the humanities are not quite so transparent.  It’s not a matter of connecting the dots from biography to text.  Sometimes all that we have is simply text.  From Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace:

It’s funny what you don’t recall. Our first home, in the suburb of Weston, which I barely remember–my eldest brother Orin says he can remember being in the home’s backyard with our mother in the early spring, helping the Moms till some sort of garden out of the cold yard. March or early April. The garden’s area was a rough rectangle laid out with Popsicle sticks and twine. Orin was removing rocks and hard clods from the Moms’s path as she worked the rented Rototiller, a wheelbarrow-shaped, gas-driven thing that roared and snorted and bucked and he remembers seemed to propel the Moms rather than vice versa, the Moms very tall and having to stoop painfully to hold on, her feet leaving drunken prints in the tilled earth. He remembers that in the middle of the tilling I came tear-assing out the door and into the backyard wearing some sort of fuzzy red Pooh-wear, crying, holding out something he said was really unpleasant-looking in my upturned palm. He says I was around five and crying and was vividly red in the cold spring air. I was saying something over and over; he couldn’t make it out until our mother saw me and shut down the tiller, ears ringing, and came over to what I was holding out. This turned out to have been a large patch of mold–Orin posits from some dark corner of the Weston home’s basement, which was warm from the furnace and flooded every spring. The patch itself he describes as horrific: darkly green, glossy, vaguely hirsute, speckled with parasitic fungal points of yellow, orange, red. Worse, they could see that the patch looked oddly incomplete, gnawed-on; and some of the nauseous stuff was smeared around my open mouth. `I ate this,’ was what I was saying. I held the patch out to the Moms, who had her contacts out for the dirty work, and at first, bending way down, saw only her crying child, hand out, proffering; and in that most maternal of reflexes she, who feared and loathed more than anything spoilage and filth, reached to take whatever her baby held out–as in how many used heavy Kleenex, spit-back candies, wads of chewed-out gum in how many theaters, airports, backseats, tournament lounges? O. stood there, he says, hefting a cold clod, playing with the Velcro on his puffy coat, watching as the Moms, bent way down to me, hand reaching, her lowering face with its presbyopic squint, suddenly stopped, froze, beginning to I.D. what it was I held out, countenancing evidence of oral contact with same. He remembers her face as past describing. Her outstretched hand, still Rototrembling, hung in the air before mine.

`I ate this,’ I said.

`Pardon me?’

Bibliotherapy: Literature as Rehabilitation

On his blog, OnFiction, Keith Oatley of the University of Toronto posted an interesting article that compiles some research done on a prisoner rehabilitation program called Changing Lives Through Literature, sponsored by the University of Massachusetts.

This program is directly applicable to the recent fervor generated in academia that questions the uses of the humanities in the so-called “real world”. It is an alternate sentencing program that will convert an offender’s jail sentence to a period of probation as long as they attend a literature seminar. Changing Lives Through Literature is built on the assumption that there exists a “transformative nature of literature that works on everyone”.

As far as the results of the program are concerned, a comparison of the recidivism rate between participants and non-participants back up the effectiveness of bibleotherapy. A study by Susan T. Krumholz and G. Roger Jarjoura, published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, found a reconviction rate of program participants to be 18.75%. This is compared to non-participants with similar background whose reconviction rate was 40%.

Although the positive effect of the program has been measured, it is still only speculation as to how much of that success can be contributed to the “transformative power of literature”. The testimonial of judges, instructors and probationers seem to give equal credit to strong mentorship by instructors, a sense of group belonging, and the power of literature as contributing factors to the programs success. A participating judge in the program, The Honorable Joseph Dever says that, “By reading great books and identifying with the characters in these books, for the first time in their lives, [probationers] begin to look at life objectively instead of subjectively”. While students do cite being engrossed and inspired by the literature, Lynn Lowell says that “The judge, probation officer, and teacher – all authority figures to us – they were all there for us – to listen to us, guide us, and direct us. It was their belief in the program and us that helped me deal with a lot of shame”. and that “This group was a connection. A bond with other women who all acted one way and felt totally another. I wasn’t alone”. (CLTL website, endorsements).

Do you believe that reading fiction can change someones life? Makes them better people? Or are other dynamics responsible for the success of bibleotherapy?

——–

“Combining Bibliotherapy and Positive Role Modeling as an Alternative to Incarceration”
Jarjoura, Roger. Krumholz, Susan. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, Vol. 28 (1/2), 1998, Pp. 127-139. Copyright 1998 by The Haworth Press, Inc., Binghamton, NY.