My best ideas happen in the shower (I have to write them down with pencil because the ink would run).
It's not an on-command thing, though; I can't will myself to solve problems in the shower. But, time and time again, I'll be musing over an idea, and I'll have a great, outside-the-box solution just pop into my head.
Today I was thinking about interpenetrability of modern space, and how the cultural critic Rima Reck noted that this was one of the hallmarks of modernism. My paper on Henry James in Venice is about that, but is otherwise a competent but boring catalog of liminality. Why not really dive into this idea of modern space? Where did this idea about interpenetrability come from? (I think from modern architecture and art, but it must have been earlier than that if James was using it in the 1870s.) An interesting reference is all the mirrors and playing around with transparency in Jacques Tati's Playtime. THIS is one way in which geography (space) and literary studies really could connect. I feel I've taken my interest in that connection to a whole new level just with this simple idea.
This just in from the Infamous B: at a local supermarket conglomerate (is it the little hibernating animal or the thing associated with leprechauns and pots o' gold? - I'll never tell; I have enough problems without threats of lawsuits) a bakery clerk made this recommendation:
"You want this Italian bread sliced? Oh, just buy the Vienna bread. That's Italian bread that we slice."
That casts the Polish partition of 17-whatever and the whole empire thing in a whole new light. "Hey,Franz Ferdinard! Got some ITALIAN bread!?!
In the wind-whipped snowstorm the other day, a cable guy showed up behind the houses on the next street, climbed a 20-foot ladder to the controller box, and changed some switches. Then we had more (free) cable channels. Hey, Colbert and Stewart! we're BAAAACK!!!
(Which reminds me: I have to learn the vocative case this weekend.)
Never, never write an exam question that requires students to use certain words in the answer. If you ask about problems with nationalism and ask students to talk about "representation" and "media," you will get answers like: "Nationalism leads to war through representation and the media."
I just had the most fabulous lunch salad, and all from leftovers in the fridge. There was a bed of chopped cabbage and parsley (no lettuce; had to improvise), sliced medium-rare grilled tuna from last night, an almost-hardboiled egg from breakfast, and the remains of the mango salsa I made for the tuna, thinned out with kumquat vinegar left over from the Kumquat Experience a couple of weeks ago. The mango salsa itself had been an improv using on-the-brink-of-death scallions (no red onion; had to improvise).
If I die later, it was the egg.
B had a reconfiguration of the chickpea curry from the other night. You know when you patch a garment so many times that there is no part of the original fabric remaining? Well, this stew was sorta like that.
Back to fellowship applications...
Back from Chicago since Saturday night. The conference was much more enjoyable than expected: known scholars were open and friendly; my own colleagues had time for me; and the sessions were, on average, not too bad. They were not filled with startling insights, but the purpose seems to be to do something relatively eye-catching, with a provocative title (or just have a provocative title for boring ol' research) and then mainly to network.
(Did I mention I hate networking? But I did it, however awkwardly, and have a fistful of biz cards to follow up on.)
The weather was warm and we had two days of light sunshine, during which we walked around and took in the unbelievable architectural spectacle that is Chicago. Makes Mpls look like a hick town and Boston like a has-been. What I really liked was 1) the craft of the buildings; and 2) the ensemble. The row of buildings lining Michigan Avenue, for example, is spectacular in detail and fit.
It reminds me that I got out of landscape architecture and then dropped out of architectural school because the focus on star buildings really bothered me. A great city can have a couple of stars, sure, but if every building is trying to be a star, there's no urbanism there, just a collection of wannabes. With architects all trying to make a name for themselves, there's little appreciation for the fill-in buildings that respect what is already there, function properly, and contribute to the urban environment without saying, "hey, look at me! Look how different and trendy I am!" (Like the Thompson Center: what an excrescence.)
I'd go back in a heartbeat, and spend maybe about a week doing architectural tours and seeing the museums and just soaking up the buzz.
Meanwhile, back to dull reality. We lazed on Sunday, and did a few errands on Monday but otherwise lazed. Today we really have to get back to biz. I have grading, the last of the grant applications, and IRB clearances to work on. I am also trying to review Polish every day in order to solidify the grammar I never "got" and to build vocabulary. Turns out that if I had really learned everything I should have, my vocabulary would be quite large - but the quizzes mainly draw on the obvious words, and so I've gotten lazy.
And, oh yeah, my dissertation. Right.
In one of the classes I TA for (ah, the joys of a "split appointment"), attendance and participation in the recitation (eeew, what an old-fashioned term) sections is worth 10% of the final grade. Quizzes are worth another 40% or so, with papers worth the remainder.
Quizzes aren't announced, but are "more or less" every other week. There's been a pattern apparently of students figuring out that when they've had a quiz in section, they won't have one the following week, so attendance drops like a stone.
My question is, how do you make class discussion valuable? How do you make it something that students "want" to attend? What has to happen there for it to have enough "value" to attend?
My premise is that higher education is different than it used to be. Back in the day, students went to college full time. Other than work-study, they did not work. They went to class (unless exhausted or too hungover) because going to class was their job, regardless of what they thought they might "get out of it" and how it might directly affect their final grade.
Now, it's all different. Students have a lot of demands on their time (perhaps more than can be managed in the time allotted) so they have to prioritize and make decisions: what will happen if I don't go to recitation? I will maybe lose one point out of my 10% participation grade, and I won't sit there for 2 hours listening to my classmates yak about the subject matter.
Hm. In this age of instrumentality, do we HAVE to demonstrate value-added? If so, what IS the value-added of discussion?
Where have I been? Working, that's where. Graded two sets of assignments, wrote and filed two fellowship applications, crammed a massive amount of Polish for a quiz (for some reason I cannot remember numbers, cardinal and ordinal, for any length of time. I have learned them at least four times, and I keep having to relearn them), wrote and practiced a conference presentation that I'm giving next week. Last night I finally slept soundly after several nights of tossing and turning with anxiety about how I would finish all this stuff.
My friend C. is thinking of removing all of his blog from the web. I wish he wouldn't, of course: reading it over from time to time is sort of like talking to him. But lately I've been wondering about the traces we leave on the Internet or on servers all over. I think about this sometimes when I am tempted to make a snarky comment in response to emails from some of my friends who work in local governments. "Remember, the [insert state] Secretary of State considers email to be a public record." I'd be embarrassed if some time in the (far) future other people read my petty, mean comments.
And of course, I self-censor in blogs, too. I don't write about college/departmental brouhahas or problems with family or friends. I got some very helpful feedback from a professor this week about some other people on campus to contact about my dissertation, and I can't put it on my dissertation page because it's a very frank (and sometimes unflattering) assessment of their abilities and connectedness.
Like C., I suppose that when the pleasure of writing online stops, then I'll stop writing online. Until then, I've missed it lately and hope I'll be able to write more often.