Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
I have a new post up over at Blogging Woolf. This time, I am writing about intermodernism, a term coined by Dr. Kristin Bluemel for literature and arts in Britain during the years between the World Wars. If readers are interested, I have plenty more to say about intermodernism.
This summer, I am teaching two sections of Composition I at Burlington’s campus next to the McGuire Air Force Base. I am enjoying these classes; the smaller groups have been wonderful for teaching Comp I. We can slow down and really deconstruct whatever we are discussing. This has been especially helpful during the grammar portion of the class. Both sets of students have been excellent.
Here are links to the course websites I put together for each class. ENG101-85 (Summer Session I) ENG101-88 (Summer Session II).
In recent weeks, I have a new post up over at Blogging Woolf. This time I am writing about Mrs. Dalloway again, specifically the role of the epic hero in the novel compared to Arnold Bennett’s novel Anna of the Five Towns. This was revised from a paper I wrote in graduate school and a few dinner conversations with Toni Magyar back then.
I really enjoy writing for Blogging Woolf. I will be posting more over there soon about Intermodernism.
I realized a few days ago I haven’t written about running in a long time. Bad weather this winter kept runs to a minimum without a lot of advancement on time or length. This spring, however, and into the summer, I have made great gains. I am now running 2.75 miles per run four days a week. As length gets longer, it has become easier to add more in small increments over time. Finally, I have been able to find a good route in my neighborhood which accommodates the length I want and has decent terrain as well.
If you would like to follow my training, check out my profile on Daily Mile. Feel free to add me as a friend.
I’m not sure if this is exactly the style they wanted, but here is my contribution for the Hacking The Academy collection. Last week, a CFP went up on Prof Hacker to put together an edited volume of essays in different forms of media about, well, hacking the academy. Among those putting this together is Dan Cohen from Zotero. I decided to write about what attending and promoting hardcore-punk shows for the past 15 years taught me about academic conferences.
Lessons Learned From 15 Years of Hardcore-Punk Shows About Hacking The Academic Conference
A lot of this I’d already deciphered by the time I was 15 years old. I spent my youth attending hardcore punk shows in, primarily, the tri-state and Delaware Valley area. I had a lot of ups and downs in regard to this, but a lot of the experiences, both good and bad, prepared me to “hack” my experience at academic conferences. Like hardcore shows, I only attend a handful of conferences per year. This is due to a variety of concerns: finances, lack of ability to travel, and a strong tendency towards being antisocial keep me at home or on campus most of the time.
I was originally drawn to the digital humanities because it encompassed a lot of the things I wasn’t seeing fully actualized by DIY hardcore. While underground and outside of the mainstream, although that is unfortunately changing, hardcore-punk is often very slow to change and evolve. Fans sneer at new means for communicating, producing and distributing records, and changing attitudes about digital media. The digital humanities are constantly changing and innovating, progressing in new and interesting ways. “Unconferences” like #thatcamp and forward thinking meetings like Digital Humanities 2009 are how I have always envisioned conferences being, but never had seen before. Projects like this one, where a book is compiled over a week, are much more “hardcore” than the ridiculous, conservative, nonsense which passes for it music wise.
When I first began attending conferences about five years ago, I drew from years of attending hardcore shows to make my experience much more interesting and productive. Here are some of the lessons I can offer for “hacking” the academic conference:
I have contributed another post to Blogging Woolf, this time about the role of intertextual and geographical citation in the works of Virginia Woolf and Arnold Bennett. If you look to the right hand side of the weblog, I am now listed as a writer. I will contribute posts on a semi-regular basis about Woolf and a number of subjects related to her writing.
I recently came across a printout of this: I only vaguely recall making this presentation, but this is my midterm presentation for Scott Rettberg’s seminar on postmodernism back in 2004 at Stockton. As you can see, I wrote my final paper on Borges. At this point, I was still putting the pieces of the puzzle in regards to Borges in general, semiotics, and especially Kristeva and Barthes.
| 
| 