So all my writing efforts have shifted toward the diss, so I thought I'd offer up one my favorite paragraphs so far, from chapter 1. It's exactly the kind of paragraph that might get cut, but I hope it doesn't:
"'Genre,' like 'invention,' also has roots in both science and literature. What words like these give us is not an excuse to do interdisciplinary work, but a directive: if the words we use to categorize idea and things within our separate fields are shared by other fields (genre), and if the words we use to describe our procedures and methodologies are also shared (experiment, invention, etc.), then we must assume that this sharing contains more interest than the kind provoked by etymological kinship. It is not that etymology is not important; rather, the interest provoked by etymological kinship, which is a kind of pleasure in finding origins (and which is supposedly a question for a linguist and not necessarily a literary critic), is a pleasure that threatens to make us forget the serious nature of what is at stake when we search out the genealogy of words. If we assume that language plays a key role in ordering experience, and I certainly do, then we must take the pleasure of etymology very seriously. For when we search out the history of a word, especially a word like invention, and when we track its historical shifts in meaning, we are also tracking the history of an idea, the history of a practice, a whole range of circumstances that both prompts the change of a word’s meaning, and the circumstances produced by that shift. There was never a time when “invention” was more pregnant with meaning than in nineteenth century America; this tells us something about this particular word and this particular nation which we would not understand without understanding them together."
Showing posts with label diss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diss. Show all posts
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Hot for Teaching
Ugh. Sorry for being away for so long, but there's a good reason: I'm finally writing my diss, really putting words on paper, and I'm excited about the direction it's taking. Which means every other kind of writing seems kind of superfluous right now.
But I don't want to lose the, like, three people who read this blog.
Teaching has been exhilarating lately. Despite having taught various courses and hundreds upon hundreds of students, I've never had a class of around 30, for which I get to teach literature--not freshman composition, not lit and film, just literature--twice a week for majors. What a significant difference it is to have students who want to be in class, and who actually take notes regarding things that I say.
I'm happy for the opportunity to teach every term, mostly because it helps pay for school. I've been in graduate school since 2004 and I do not owe a dime for it--and that's because I've been able to teach. The problem is they usually stick me in Freshman Composition. It's assumed that because we study literature, that we automatically know how to teach writing. Now I probably know better than many grad students in other fields, but I do not consider myself an expert in teaching writing--it is truly a field unto itself. Literary criticism is an entirely different animal than teaching basic composition to students who can hardly write a sentence.
And so in my composition courses I rarely assign literature because what I hate even more is teaching people who don't give a crap about it. Which is why this term has been so great. I literally run out of time every single class, because I have so much to say and so little time to say it. I have to curb the urge to simply lecture the entire time, because it's such an intoxicating feeling. It's in front of a class like this that I realize how much I've learned--how many different ways I can take a lecture depending upon what associations I happen to be making that day with the material we cover. I'm usually quite fluid with my words, but I'm working on overcoming what I think is a monotonous tone when I lecture--and my low voice doesn't help. I like to pace, because it helps me think, but sometimes it prevents me from making eye-contact with students, which I'm also working on.
So far, the students have liked Dickinson the best, and for very good reason. What an amazing poet she is.
But I don't want to lose the, like, three people who read this blog.
Teaching has been exhilarating lately. Despite having taught various courses and hundreds upon hundreds of students, I've never had a class of around 30, for which I get to teach literature--not freshman composition, not lit and film, just literature--twice a week for majors. What a significant difference it is to have students who want to be in class, and who actually take notes regarding things that I say.
I'm happy for the opportunity to teach every term, mostly because it helps pay for school. I've been in graduate school since 2004 and I do not owe a dime for it--and that's because I've been able to teach. The problem is they usually stick me in Freshman Composition. It's assumed that because we study literature, that we automatically know how to teach writing. Now I probably know better than many grad students in other fields, but I do not consider myself an expert in teaching writing--it is truly a field unto itself. Literary criticism is an entirely different animal than teaching basic composition to students who can hardly write a sentence.
And so in my composition courses I rarely assign literature because what I hate even more is teaching people who don't give a crap about it. Which is why this term has been so great. I literally run out of time every single class, because I have so much to say and so little time to say it. I have to curb the urge to simply lecture the entire time, because it's such an intoxicating feeling. It's in front of a class like this that I realize how much I've learned--how many different ways I can take a lecture depending upon what associations I happen to be making that day with the material we cover. I'm usually quite fluid with my words, but I'm working on overcoming what I think is a monotonous tone when I lecture--and my low voice doesn't help. I like to pace, because it helps me think, but sometimes it prevents me from making eye-contact with students, which I'm also working on.
So far, the students have liked Dickinson the best, and for very good reason. What an amazing poet she is.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Melville '08
I'm going to avoid the Palin saga. If you're reading this blog regularly, you can probably predict my reaction anyway...besides, one of my favorite bloggers, Andrew Sullivan, has it covered (link on the right).
After all, this blog purports to be interested in politics AND literature, and I haven't posted anything about the latter at all.
I was reading Melville's Mardi today, the novel he wrote just before Moby Dick. Mardi is kind of a warm-up for Melville--not a great novel, but you can definitely see his talent ripening, before it finally comes to fruition in 1850.
A passage like this is typical of Melville's later style, which is built upon occasional interruptions of the plot to allow his narrator to soliloquize. This kind of interruption--which is a kind of editorializing--is left behind in the twentieth century novel (and poetry) when the idea that showing is superior to telling, becomes the aesthetic norm. Yet, I can't help but appreciate passages like these:
"But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.--Long memories of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours--how common are ye to all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say--'Lo, thy felicity, my soul?' No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when looked back upon from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come out of, to behold."
This passage speaks to my own introspection. Being someone (writing a diss) who is forced to spend a lot of time with his thoughts, I sometimes think back upon times when I've been most happy. I think this passage has it right: true happiness is rarely a conscious state of mind. You only realize happiness long after the fact. This must be true in some respects, since to focus in on your own happiness would automatically mean that you're less attuned to the moment that's actually making you happy.
I can think of some exceptions though. I'm consciously happy when I spend time with Ada. Another example: after I returned from my honeymoon with Michele, I knew that I had just spent one of the happiest weeks in my life. So maybe the above passage isn't universal, even though I think it's generally true.
When I look back upon the time Michele and I spent in Tennessee, for example, we had some difficult times that I wouldn't qualify as "happy." We were constantly broke, we had just gotten married and moved to a place far, far away from home. There were challenges to overcome. But when I look back upon that time as a whole, I do regard it as a "happy" time for us. Though we struggled, we were living in the moment and growing stronger and more mature together. I think these are the types of moments, or extended moments, Melville is writing about here--the kind that need some time to ferment before thier true significance can be enjoyed.
Part of me also responds to this passage on an academic level. Happiness, like most abstract ideas, has a cultural history. The word "happy" derives from the Old English word "hap," which is closer to the idea of having good fortune. The way Melville uses the word, and how we conceive of "happiness" now, can be dated back to the mid 16th-century, but it really only becomes culturally commonplace until the 19th (the OED, of course, is my source for this info).
This more contemporary inflection of "happiness" is a human invention, and if one were in a cynical mood, one might suggest it's over-pursued in our contemporary culture. Actually, one need not be cynical to at least conjecture that our culture purports to know the source of happiness (if not, why the centrality of the self-help craze?), not realizing that its offering up golden calves.
The thing I love about literature is that passages like these are relatable on a personal level; but they can also be dissected beyond the self.
This next passage contemplates, not happiness, but mourning, and different types of sadness. Once again, one can see how emotionally astute Melville has become at this point in his career, and how lyrical. Its theme of sadness contrasts nicely with the passage above:
"Misery became a memory. The keen pang a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the thing remembered; though bowed with sadness. There are thoughts that lie and glitter deep: tearful pearls beneath life's sea, that surges still, and rolls sunlit, whatever it may hide. Common woes, like fluids, mix all round. Not so with that other grief. Some mourners load the air with lamentations; but the loudest notes are struck from hollows. Their tears flow fast: but the deep spring only wells."
Melville compares two types of sadness--the common kind, which eventually dissipate into the swirl of life and memory, and the deeper kind--the kinds that we don't as readily forget. One could conceive of all types of metaphors for this difference. But Melville chooses to draw upon the image of a pearl swirling around at the bottom of an ocean. It's a perfect image. The pearl is small amid the ocean, but its made of strong material and persists. It's hidden, but it's also distinct. It's buried, but it endures amid lesser sadness. Most importantly, the pearl is a beautiful object, one to seek after and cherish. Not all mourning should be dismissed or forgotten. When placed alongside happiness, in the cycle of human emotions, the two play off, counteract, and ultimately compliment one another.
After all, this blog purports to be interested in politics AND literature, and I haven't posted anything about the latter at all.
I was reading Melville's Mardi today, the novel he wrote just before Moby Dick. Mardi is kind of a warm-up for Melville--not a great novel, but you can definitely see his talent ripening, before it finally comes to fruition in 1850.
A passage like this is typical of Melville's later style, which is built upon occasional interruptions of the plot to allow his narrator to soliloquize. This kind of interruption--which is a kind of editorializing--is left behind in the twentieth century novel (and poetry) when the idea that showing is superior to telling, becomes the aesthetic norm. Yet, I can't help but appreciate passages like these:
"But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.--Long memories of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours--how common are ye to all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say--'Lo, thy felicity, my soul?' No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when looked back upon from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come out of, to behold."
This passage speaks to my own introspection. Being someone (writing a diss) who is forced to spend a lot of time with his thoughts, I sometimes think back upon times when I've been most happy. I think this passage has it right: true happiness is rarely a conscious state of mind. You only realize happiness long after the fact. This must be true in some respects, since to focus in on your own happiness would automatically mean that you're less attuned to the moment that's actually making you happy.
I can think of some exceptions though. I'm consciously happy when I spend time with Ada. Another example: after I returned from my honeymoon with Michele, I knew that I had just spent one of the happiest weeks in my life. So maybe the above passage isn't universal, even though I think it's generally true.
When I look back upon the time Michele and I spent in Tennessee, for example, we had some difficult times that I wouldn't qualify as "happy." We were constantly broke, we had just gotten married and moved to a place far, far away from home. There were challenges to overcome. But when I look back upon that time as a whole, I do regard it as a "happy" time for us. Though we struggled, we were living in the moment and growing stronger and more mature together. I think these are the types of moments, or extended moments, Melville is writing about here--the kind that need some time to ferment before thier true significance can be enjoyed.
Part of me also responds to this passage on an academic level. Happiness, like most abstract ideas, has a cultural history. The word "happy" derives from the Old English word "hap," which is closer to the idea of having good fortune. The way Melville uses the word, and how we conceive of "happiness" now, can be dated back to the mid 16th-century, but it really only becomes culturally commonplace until the 19th (the OED, of course, is my source for this info).
This more contemporary inflection of "happiness" is a human invention, and if one were in a cynical mood, one might suggest it's over-pursued in our contemporary culture. Actually, one need not be cynical to at least conjecture that our culture purports to know the source of happiness (if not, why the centrality of the self-help craze?), not realizing that its offering up golden calves.
The thing I love about literature is that passages like these are relatable on a personal level; but they can also be dissected beyond the self.
This next passage contemplates, not happiness, but mourning, and different types of sadness. Once again, one can see how emotionally astute Melville has become at this point in his career, and how lyrical. Its theme of sadness contrasts nicely with the passage above:
"Misery became a memory. The keen pang a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the thing remembered; though bowed with sadness. There are thoughts that lie and glitter deep: tearful pearls beneath life's sea, that surges still, and rolls sunlit, whatever it may hide. Common woes, like fluids, mix all round. Not so with that other grief. Some mourners load the air with lamentations; but the loudest notes are struck from hollows. Their tears flow fast: but the deep spring only wells."
Melville compares two types of sadness--the common kind, which eventually dissipate into the swirl of life and memory, and the deeper kind--the kinds that we don't as readily forget. One could conceive of all types of metaphors for this difference. But Melville chooses to draw upon the image of a pearl swirling around at the bottom of an ocean. It's a perfect image. The pearl is small amid the ocean, but its made of strong material and persists. It's hidden, but it's also distinct. It's buried, but it endures amid lesser sadness. Most importantly, the pearl is a beautiful object, one to seek after and cherish. Not all mourning should be dismissed or forgotten. When placed alongside happiness, in the cycle of human emotions, the two play off, counteract, and ultimately compliment one another.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Even Sandy's and Danny's summer ended
My summer is officially over. Tuesday I start back to teaching class, and more importantly, begin my newly disciplined and streamlined schedule in which I finish the first chapter of my diss this term.
I'm very habitual and live by my routines. Alas, malaise, much like I imagine a very addictive drug, is the easiest habit to acquire, and has overgrown my day-to-day this summer like a bad weed. Granted, much of that was spent with my new daughter, so I really don't regret my do-nothingness. Nevertheless, I must thwart summer's complacency with different and better habits.
That means less TV (and football season is starting, too!). Less time online. Less sleeping generally. More time writing. Hopefully not less time with Ada and Michele. Overall, less fun.
For, malaise, contrary to its connations of rottedness and decadence, can also be a tempting wellspring of, maybe not joy, but certainly a deceiving contentment. Even further reason to rekindle my ambition, lest I become permanently mired in a bog I only thought had been a fountainhead.
Here's to summer, and back to life.
I'm very habitual and live by my routines. Alas, malaise, much like I imagine a very addictive drug, is the easiest habit to acquire, and has overgrown my day-to-day this summer like a bad weed. Granted, much of that was spent with my new daughter, so I really don't regret my do-nothingness. Nevertheless, I must thwart summer's complacency with different and better habits.
That means less TV (and football season is starting, too!). Less time online. Less sleeping generally. More time writing. Hopefully not less time with Ada and Michele. Overall, less fun.
For, malaise, contrary to its connations of rottedness and decadence, can also be a tempting wellspring of, maybe not joy, but certainly a deceiving contentment. Even further reason to rekindle my ambition, lest I become permanently mired in a bog I only thought had been a fountainhead.
Here's to summer, and back to life.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Why I'm blogging
As I wrote in "about sam-plings" (to the right), I started this blog so that I can get into a regular habit of writing, which I need to be more disciplined about since I'm currently writing my dissertation. It's the final step--and by far the most difficult--I'll take in my graduate career before I finally get my PhD and hopefully, a tenure-track job.
Writing a dissertation is almost equivalent to writing a book (it's roughly the same length as the average book)--but not just any book. My readers are four very smart people who have all published widely-read books themselves (at least in lit crit circles); in addition, I'm writing about literature, which means I'm writing about writing. Lastly, the authors and texts I write about are ones that I care about and deeply respect.
All this has led to a reluctance to write. I've been researching and reading on my topic for over a year now, but that's the fun and easy part. Concocting and designing arguments that have not already been proffered before--that's what has me frozen at the moment. It's not really a crisis of confidence--I haven't gotten this far without a certain amount of confidence in my ideas and my ability to analyze--but that at this point I think I'm expecting too much out of myself. The first step is just to get my ideas on paper. I can always revise.
As far as this blog goes, I will rarely touch on my diss. A couple models that I'm following are Andrew Sullivan's (he writes for The Atlantic), and my friend and teacher, Charlie Bertsch's blog. What I appreciate about Sullivan's blog is his radical openness to other people's ideas and to critiques of his own positions. He's a conservative (in the old-fashioned sense--suspicious of collective action and government intervention), which means I disagree with him quite a bit. But I tend not to read blogs by people who I know I will agree with, because I can always predict their position. Sullivan constantly surprises me with fresh takes that are well-argued and unpredictable. He also has a knack for staying on top of important cultural trends.
What I appreciate about my friend Charlie's blog is that 1) they're very smart 2) he covers a wonderful variety of topics (everything from music to his daughter to sports) 3) he's very honest without being solipsistic.
Anyhow, I hope that what I imagine will be a very small readership of this blog, at first, will eventually grow. If not, I'm glad to write to family and friends. In the least, I hope it functions as a way for people who I care about to get to know me better. Most of my posts will be brief, but occasionally, I'll take time to write longer, more involved posts (once a week?).
Writing a dissertation is almost equivalent to writing a book (it's roughly the same length as the average book)--but not just any book. My readers are four very smart people who have all published widely-read books themselves (at least in lit crit circles); in addition, I'm writing about literature, which means I'm writing about writing. Lastly, the authors and texts I write about are ones that I care about and deeply respect.
All this has led to a reluctance to write. I've been researching and reading on my topic for over a year now, but that's the fun and easy part. Concocting and designing arguments that have not already been proffered before--that's what has me frozen at the moment. It's not really a crisis of confidence--I haven't gotten this far without a certain amount of confidence in my ideas and my ability to analyze--but that at this point I think I'm expecting too much out of myself. The first step is just to get my ideas on paper. I can always revise.
As far as this blog goes, I will rarely touch on my diss. A couple models that I'm following are Andrew Sullivan's (he writes for The Atlantic), and my friend and teacher, Charlie Bertsch's blog. What I appreciate about Sullivan's blog is his radical openness to other people's ideas and to critiques of his own positions. He's a conservative (in the old-fashioned sense--suspicious of collective action and government intervention), which means I disagree with him quite a bit. But I tend not to read blogs by people who I know I will agree with, because I can always predict their position. Sullivan constantly surprises me with fresh takes that are well-argued and unpredictable. He also has a knack for staying on top of important cultural trends.
What I appreciate about my friend Charlie's blog is that 1) they're very smart 2) he covers a wonderful variety of topics (everything from music to his daughter to sports) 3) he's very honest without being solipsistic.
Anyhow, I hope that what I imagine will be a very small readership of this blog, at first, will eventually grow. If not, I'm glad to write to family and friends. In the least, I hope it functions as a way for people who I care about to get to know me better. Most of my posts will be brief, but occasionally, I'll take time to write longer, more involved posts (once a week?).
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