The Little Professor

Next year's classes

As I know my readers often appreciate a glimpse at what I'm teaching, let me offer this preview of next year's exciting lineup.

• Write Your Own Adventure: A Student-Centered Learning Experience.  Bored with reading stuffy old Victorian novels? Can't bear the sight of one more Shakespeare play? This class is for you! Students will develop syllabi keyed to their own interests, craft their own assignments, and even handle their own grading.  The instructor will drop in now and again to convey priceless pearls of wisdom.  No requirements unless you want to have requirements! No reading unless you want to have reading! And, of course, no exams unless you...you get the idea.  Fulfills any distribution requirement you feel like having it fulfill.
• I'll Bring Popcorn: Best Strategies for Internet Flame Wars.  Many students feel that college composition courses don't have adequate real-world applications.  In this class, we'll focus on developing your skills in three key areas: invective, outrage, and name-calling.  But with grammar.  Over the course of the semester, students will participate in at least six online mudslinging events, preferably on subjects about which they have chosen to remain ignorant.  Points will be deducted for signs of rational thought, charity, or sense of proportion.  This course is a prerequisite for Advanced Astroturfing.
• Relatable Literature.  This course is devoted to fiction to which students can relate.  All assigned texts will accurately reflect the one true undergraduate experience.  There will be nothing strange, untoward, bizarre, or otherwise unreflective of the one true undergraduate experience.  I guarantee that students will be able to completely identify with all events, characters, and ideas in each and every text.  Assignments will include the complete works of Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer.  By the end of the semester, students will complete a quantitative research project gauging the precise relatability of each work.
• The Victorian Cosplay Experience.    In this class, we will remedy the paucity of opportunities for students to display their skills in cobbling, dressmaking, and haberdashery.  Instead of close reading, students will analyze novels by Carroll, Dickens, and Braddon, among others, by building costumes based on the texts and then staging elaborate set pieces for their fellow students.  This is your opportunity to have a Mad Tea Party, die a terribly sentimental death, or drop someone down a well.  (In a classroom.  And not for real.  No lawsuits, please.)  Patterns available on request.
• The Great Novels of Edward Bulwer-Lytton.  An ideal class for students who need three credits of coursework, but don't have the time to do any reading.  Seriously, have you looked at the title? 

Things I have learned about college lecturing from watching CSI

• To achieve the best dramatic effects, lecture with only minimal lighting, leaving the students with no way to see their notes.  If at all possible, arrange for your own personal spotlight.  
• Dust motes are necessary for atmosphere; request that the custodians refrain from vacuuming, mopping, or otherwise cleaning the room.
• Be sure to have a REALLY BIG SCREEN on which to display your exciting multimedia illustrations.
• Your students will, of course, have the kind of comfortable seats one expects in movie theaters. 
• Notes on the chalkboard should be arranged with a Michelangelo-esque attention to aesthetics. 
• Deliver your lectures with the same degree of seriousness that you would use to declare the onset of World War III.
• Rest assured that students will be absolutely spellbound by your performance.  They will not text, doodle, giggle, gossip, or snooze.  In fact, many of them will nod and sigh in awe of your incredible profundity, whether or not you have actually said anything worth remembering. 
• All of your students will be tastefully dressed in the latest preppy fashions.  For some reason, they will also appear to be in their late twenties or early thirties, even though they are really only eighteen.

Reasons Why Stats Peak on Wednesdays

Ever since the dawn of time--or, at least, since the dawn of this blog--the stats have always peaked on Wednesdays.  I have some theories:

1.  Unexpected influence of Odin on academic blog readers.

2.  At midweek, academics are desperate enough that they need to read blogs, but not yet desperate enough to drop everything and head for the bars.

3.  A general sense of woe?

4.  Because it's the middle of the week, everyone feels perched on a peak of perilous equilibrium.  Therefore, they read blogs in order to tip themselves over, one way or the other.

5.  Everyone is procrastinating on Thursday and Friday course prep.

6.  Some kind of Foucauldian distribution of power-knowledge.

7.  Academics realizing that they have scheduled all of their students' papers to arrive, once again, on Wednesday; they turn to blog reading as solace.

8.  The expectation that I will be unusually brilliant on Wednesday? (As opposed to dull the other days?)

9.  Manifesting the ineluctable power of centrism.

10.  The ongoing war between superego, id, and ego resulting in a stalemate that leaves the reader no other mode of intellectual activity than reading blogs.  On Wednesdays. 

The Horrid Dungeon of the Syllabi!!! A Fragment of a Gothick Romance

Editor's note: The following fragment came into my hands after an archeological expedition to Brock-Port discovered a miraculously still-functional electronic device, known to the ancients as a "laptop computer," which contained several documents of a most curious description.  Although the bytes were considerably degraded, we were able to decode the narrative below, which throws a most shocking light upon the manners and customs of academic life in the twenty-first century.

...Icy winds, as cutting and uncaring as an anonymous peer review, blasted around the crumbling brick towers.  They piled the dank, dirty snow into treacherous heaps,  concealing deadly ice patches that threatened the lives of any innocents who dared venture beyond the doors.   But those trapped inside were held fast by cruel orders, and heavy chains, and evil spells beyond description.  For this was the Dungeon of the Syllabi, to which all faculty who left writing their syllabi to the day before classes were consigned.  Woe!...

...Shivering in her chilly cell, Elle P. hunched over her laptop, staring bleary-eyed at a syllabus for the Gothic Novel.  Her chains of USB cords clacked softly as she sought to relieve her aching back. Beyond the steel door, she heard the wails of fellow inmates, bemoaning their fates as they pounded unceasingly at their uncaring keyboards.  Some of them, it was rumored, had been sent to the dread Dungeon every semester for years and years upon end.  Elle shuddered at the thought of the bitter torments that awaited those who failed to complete their miserable task: incomplete assignments! Late papers! Sneering student evaluations! The disdain of her colleagues! Whimpering softly as she bemoaned her fate, all the more horrid for being self-induced, Elle burst into a song of despair--but her voice soon died away, for she had never been very good at rhyming on the fly...

...Finally, the gnawing pains in her belly drove Elle to abandon her office in search of what sustenance the Dungeon had to offer.  Timidly, she crept out into the halls, trembling as the howls and shrieks of the other lost souls escalated in volume.  She inched past the mysterious, fading posters attached to the walls, which blazoned forth the agonies suffered by prisoners past, and, fearing to take the clanking elevator--for who knows if it might suffer some mysterious breakdown, trapping her there to die of starvation!--she crept down the steps.  There, standing before her, were vending machines, filled with unhealthy food intended to inflict cavities, sugar rushes, and halitosis on all who dared consume it.  But the demands of the syllabi forced Elle to indulge...

...Behind her, a SOUND! Elle whirled about and found herself faced with some unearthly creature, tall and indistinct of form, its features obscured with a scarf, its body wrapped in a heavy coat, its feet encased in fuzzy boots.  Her thoughts spun and crashed uselessly into each other in what remained of her brain.  Was this the ghost rumored to haunt the building's halls? Was it some vampire, out to suck her life's blood? Or, even worse, was it the embodiment of the feared SERVER OUTAGE, which had been known to destroy faculty lives with one zap of its electronic paw? Elle's senses swam, and she felt herself swooning to the floor, at the mercy of this strange beast, when it spoke:

"I'm, like, looking for the computer lab.  Is it, um, on this floor?"

Not trusting herself to speak, Elle pointed one trembling finger in the direction of the computer lab.

"Cool, dude! Thanks."

...

...She had completed her task! The curse would soon be lifted! Elle once again attempted to lift her voice in song, but ceased when the next cell's occupant complained that she was off-key.  Nevertheless, she joyously printed out her syllabi and skipped to the door, contemplating her future after her release from the Dungeon.   Never again would she fall prey to that dire demon, Procrastination.  Her life would be one of virtue, cheerfulness, and, above all, punctuality.  As she neared the office ahead, she saw other inmates, all congratulating each other with great excitement over their impending depatures from this fearsome pile. 

Yet, all of a sudden, a terrific SHRIEK arose from amidst the crowd.  The congratulations turned to screams, moans, and gasps of agony beyond mortal description.  Elle rushed to the office as she saw one sufferer after another faint to the floor, clutching their syllabi in their cold hands.  What could it be? What new evil? Why were faculty being brought low at the very moment of their triumph?

And then--she SAW.  Shaken to her core, she sobbed witlessly for a moment, then swooned (again) to the floor.  For the punishment dreaded beyond all others had been inflicted upon them.  Upon the photocopier, there was a sign, inked in a red more bloody than any human blood:

"Photocopier broken.  We've called the repairman.  Sorry!"

How to write a Dracula pastiche

At some point in the future, I'm going to write an article about  Dracula pastiches.  (Believe it or not, the project develops directly out of my usual line of work.)  This is not that article.  I have observed, however, that many of these pastiches appear to be adhering to some sort of script:

1.  Dracula is Mina Harker's One Twoo Wuv.  She cannot live without him, nor he live die undie without her.  He may demonstrate his Grand Passion by kidnapping her, attempting to murder Jonathan Harker, sucking her blood on a regular basis, and/or other acts of a similarly sentimental nature.

2.  Dracula has been Badly Misunderstood, victimized by evil anti-vampire factions in the Victorian media.  Any behaviors that might conceivably be regarded as undesirable, such as Rampant Impaling, should be regarded in the light of Minor Youthful Missteps.

3.  Although vampires do not sparkle, they are always Sexy. 

4.  Mina Harker is a New Woman, and therefore interested in Sex.  This demonstrates that she is not a Repressed Victorian.  But she also yearns for a Traditional Monogamous Relationship with her Man/Vampire of Choice, which makes her Liberated in a Good Way.  Therefore, she gets a Good Ending with her Man/Vampire of Choice. 

5.  Lucy Westenra is also interested in Sex, which demonstrates that she is not a Repressed Victorian.  But she succumbs to Vampires Who Are Not Her Fiance, which makes her Liberated in a Bad Way.   Therefore, she needs to Die Very Unpleasantly.

6.  Vampire Sex is very Hot, and may cause Swooning.  It may also cause women to feel as though they are Shaking, Burning, or Exploding, which suggests that Hot Vampire Sex should take place only in non-flammable environments equipped with shatterproof glass.

7.  Jonathan Harker does not supply Hot Vampire Sex, and so must be a) a Wimp, b) Boring, and/or c) Sexually Unadventurous.  In fact, he may need to die, freeing Mina to live die undie with her One Twoo Wuv (see #1). He may be redeemed, however, if he shows himself willing to take lessons from Mina after she has had Hot Vampire Sex. 

8.  Female Vampires are notoriously Depraved, especially when they engage in regular Hot Vampire Sex.  Bonus points if the Female Vampire is Elizabeth Bathory.

9.  All human males, especially if Aristocratic, are Lustful, Murderous, and/or Inconstant, unless they are named Jonathan Harker (in which case, see #7) or are American.  Apparently, American males resist Lust, Murder, and Inconstancy, possibly because they are from the New World and so are not yet Degenerate, let alone Aristocratic.

10.  Van Helsing is not a Good Man, but a Repressed Victorian, which is Bad (unless you are Lucy, in which case see #5).  He may be tempted by Hot Vampire Sex, which makes him feel Lustful (see #9) and therefore drives him to Serial Staking, or he may be Obsessed, which also drives him to Serial Staking.  Asking him to give blood transfusions is a Bad Idea, and results in a Very Unpleasant Death. 

Alternate titles for courses with no books

The low point of my otherwise fine education at the University of Chicago came when a professor on the brink of retirement screwed up his book order.  When we, in some puzzlement, inquired as to the whereabouts of the books, he shrugged and said, "Eh.  We just won't use any."

Needless to say, this arrangement predated GoogleBooks and company.  I retitled the course, appropriately enough, "The Course with No Books." 

Right now, my courses are also without books.  I sincerely hope this is a temporary arrangement.  In the meantime, perhaps I should rename them...

Reimagining British Literature, Because We Have None to Read

The Poetics of Invisibility

Erasing the Canon

Post-Textual Studies in British Literature

Making Words Mean Many Different Things: The Collaborative Reconstruction of British Literature in the Twenty-First Century Classroom

An Instructor Reads Aloud: Reviving Medieval Pedagogy for the Modern Day

Literary Study by Vulcan Mind-Meld: A Group Experiment

Mediums and Media: Studying Victorian Poetry through Seances

 

A Starfleet Captain Attempts to Get a Book, ca. 2481

FROM: Captain Solok

TO: Chief Information Officer Siwik

RE: The T'Kumbra Monthly Bookclub Reading Selection

In the light of recent events, it has come to my attention that our officers might appreciate some relatively undemanding Terran reading for this month's selection.  With this in mind, please ensure universal crew access to James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

FROM: Chief Information Officer Siwik

TO: Captain Solok

RE: One cannot even begin to post Finnegans Wake

I regret to say that current Terran copyright legislation forbids the sale of all works by Joyce to species with eidectic memories.  Reading Finnegans Wake and remembering it is considered tantamount to making a second copy; at best, we would be forced to sign contracts promising that all memories of the work would be erased upon completion.  Obviously, this discriminatory legislation is being appealed in the Federation courts, but until it is successfully overturned, I believe that most of our crew would object strongly to such invasive procedures.

FROM: Captain Solok

TO: Chief Information Officer Siwik

RE: These words do not compute

I am puzzled by your use of "copyright legislation" and "sale" in your recent communication, as neither one exists in Gene Roddenberry's universe.  Please clarify.

FROM: Chief Information Offier Siwik

TO: Captain Solok

RE: Fan mail

It would seem that the lords of our universe, having spent sufficient time reading fan mail pointing  out that Federation economics appear totally unworkable, have decided to neglect canon.

In the meantime, I have requested three requests for information regarding this month's bookclub reading.

FROM: Captain Solok

TO: Chief Information Officer Siwik

RE: Alternative novel

As time is pressing, I suggest that we pursue something concise.  Samuel Richardson's Clarissa should not be unduly burdensome.

FROM: Chief Information Officer Siwik

TO: Captain Solok

RE: Copyright laws and holograms

Unfortunately, the Hologram Intellectual Property Act mandates that sentient holograms of deceased authors be treated as identical to those authors for the purposes of copyright law.  The Samuel Richardson hologram currently resident at the Sam Richardson Eighteenth-Century Experience (which, I gather, is some sort of live entertainment, featuring costumed performers and authentic English cuisine of the period) qualifies under the Act.  Under the circumstances, licensing fees will in all likelihood be most prohibitive, unless we cancel our annual subscription to Vulcan Chocolatier. 

FROM: Captain Solok

TO: Chief Information Officer Siwik

RE: Howl, howl, howl

William Shakespeare's King Lear, I trust, is safely out of copyright.

FROM: Chief Information Officer Siwik

TO: Captain Solok

RE: And my poor fool is not dead

Perhaps you are unaware of the current controversy surrounding Shakespeare and the Clones' Rights to Intellectual Propery Protection Bill? Recent advances in cloning technology have enabled scientists to clone Shakespeare from microbes discovered at what is believed  to be his home in Stratford, thereby bringing his work back under copyright protections.  Unfortunately, quarrels among various schools of Shakespearean authorship have led to the cloning of multiple "Shakespeares," including a Wilhelmina Shakespeare, all of whom have filed in court for the rights to royalties for performances of Shakespeare's plays.  As a result, there is currently a galaxy-wide moratorium on the production and printing of any play by Shakespeare, although I gather that one of the clones has written a new comedy, The Taming of the Gorn.

FROM: Captain Solok

TO: Chief Officer Siwik

RE: Somebody out there must be dead

Please tell me that Charlotte Bronte, at least, remains safely underground, so that we may read Jane Eyre.

FROM: Chief Officer Siwik

TO: Captain Solok

RE: Reader, I unburied him

There is currently some uproar about the copyright status of Charlotte Bronte's work, as she was recently found to be not dead, but undead.  When the vampiric Miss Bronte left the moors to approach the Federation Copyright Office, they initially concluded that as she was, technically, dead, her work had fallen into the public domain (a precedent set by FCO vs. Zombie Robert Browning).  However, Miss Bronte has since sued the FCO, arguing that the undead maintain their intellectual property rights until they have been disintegrated, shot with silver bullets, staked, or otherwise consigned to their final resting place.  The case is pending.

I hear, however, that Beowulf remains in the public domain...

Today's homework assignment, for politicians everywhere on the spectrum

Class,

Your assignment is as follows:

1.  Read Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy, chs. 1 and 2.

2.  Pay close attention to what Arnold means by "machinery."  Can you think of any parallels in contemporary political discourse?

3.  Identify an example of machinery in one of your own speeches or essays (or, at least, one of the speeches or essays generated by the speechwriter[s] you pay for the purpose). 

4.  Write an essay in which you uncover (or attempt to uncover) the ends to which your machinery should, properly speaking, only be the means.

5.  Please note that using speechwriters to complete this essay assignment will result in an automatic "F."

 

The Intergalactic Modern Language Association Style Guide, 42nd Edition

We at the Communication Center of the Alpha Quadrant University of the Humanoid Arts—Lunar Campus know  that frequent changes to the IMLA style guide can be deeply frustrating to students and faculty alike.  For that reason, we have developed this handy “Shorter IMLA,” which will save communicators the effort of searching through the IMLA’s current index of 329,291,481 citation forms.   

Note on author names:  IMLA style maintains the Federation Standard indexing order of Last name (Family Name, Patronymic, Matronymic, House Name, etc.), First name.  Be sure to check the specific rules for each species.  If the author is human, then the name should be ordered Last, First (e.g., Smith, John); however, Bajorans list the family name first.  Vulcan family names are not used offworld, and should not be included in the citation.    If the author is Andorian, then be sure to attach the gender prefix to the family name (e.g., zh’Lhrowyuwna, Rwyaniann).  For species with names that cannot be transliterated into Standard, append a sound file. 

BOOK, SINGLE AUTHOR

Author name + of Planet.  Title.  City, [Continent,] Planet: Distribution Network Service, Stardate. 

Spock of Vulcan.  Yes, Really, I Am Spock.   New Los Angeles, North America, Terra: Star by Star P, 2392.6.

CHAPTER IN AN EDITED COLLECTION

Author name + of Planet.  “Title.”  Book title.   Ed. Editor name[s] + of Planet.  City, [Continent,] Planet: Distribution Network Service, Stardate.  Paragraph numbers.

Waldron, Christopher of Rigel XII.  “‘What is this thing called “love”?’: A History of Xenoeroticism in the Harlequin Romance from First Contact to the Present.”  Kiss Me with Those Red Tentacles:  Love, Lust, and Longing in the Age of Intergalactic Empire.  Ed. Jennifer Rhodes of Terra and Styuq of Gornar.  Vulcana Regar, Vulcan: Foundation for the Study of Emotional Beings, 2375.8. 234-392. 

ARTICLE IN A PERIODICAL

Author name + of Planet.  “Title.”  Periodical Title Volume.Issue.Timestamp (Stardate): Paragraph numbers.   

K’Mekh of Qon’oS.  “Gagging on Gagh: An Experiment in Klingon-Human Culinary Exchange.”  Qapla! The Klingon Interstellar Journal of Cultural Studies 39321.12.13:42:02 (2398.1): 4890-5367.

PRINTED BOOKS, OLD STYLE

Author name + of Planet.  Title.  Material.  Production method.   Format.  City, [Continent,] Planet:        Publisher, Date.

Burstein, Miriam Elizabeth of Terra.  True Confessions of an Academic Blogger.    Paper.  Electronic print-on-demand.  Hardcopy.  New York, North America, Terra: Nonexistent Academic Press, 2012.              

MULTI-DIMENSIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Author name + of Planet.  Title.  Number of dimensions.  Quadrant.  [Location of rupture in space-time  continuum.]  Stardate.  Accession date.

ch’Liyarahnnnaia, Thwimianieal of Andor.  A Study of Tellarite Clothing in Six Universes: A Multisensory Approach.  Four dimensions.  Beta Quadrant.  Five lightyears from Gornar.  2384.1.  2396.4.

PUBLICATION FROM AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

Author name + of Planet + of Universe.  Title.  City, [Continent,] Planet: Distribution Network Service, Original Stardate.  Prime Universe Stardate.

T’Par of Vulcan of Delta Universe.  Vulcan Musical Comedy: The One Hundred Best Shows. ShiKahr, Vulcan: Funnybones Press, 2408.5.  2409.3.

TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION

Sender name + of Planet to Recepient name + of Planet.  “First sentence of communication.”  Telepathic  communication.  Duration.  Stardate.

Jergen Thoyrin  of Betazed to Michael Walsh of Terra.  “Don’t look now, but that Medusan has its eye on you.”  Telepathic communication.  Twelve minutes.  2390.12.

COMMUNICATION FROM OMNIPOTENT ENERGY BEING

Omnipotent energy being name to Recipient name + of Planet.  “First sentence of communication.” Mode of communication.  Duration.  Stardate.

Q to Jean-Luc Picard of Terra.  “I know you’re getting married right now, Jean-Luc, but this will be just the most wonderful surprise.”  Morse code delivered via radiation from pulsar.  18 minutes. 2380.7. 

 

(Note: I refreshed my Star Trek trivia knowledge with the aid of the Star Trek wikis.)

Random thoughts while scanning the last seven boxes of photocopies

• Surely I had a reason for photocopying this article from the Gentleman's Magazine.  Now, if only I had a time machine that would tell me what it was.
• Good heavens! It's been an hour since I started converting Paul de Rapin to searchable PDF, and he's not done yet. 
• I own a scholarly edition of John Millar's English Government.  Why didn't I throw this out several months ago?!
• If this ScanSnap eats one. more. page, I will shriek so loudly that the very ends of the earth will tremble and fall.
• *loud shriek*
• *no trembling or falling*
• Why on earth do I have two copies of this article?
• You know, the U of C library photocopiers from the mid-1990s were just not very good.
• Did I ever cite this article by Caroline Norton?
• Something tells me that the world will not come to an end if I discard this poem by Ernest Jones.
• Staples, beware my wrath! I shall call down the might of Nature upon you, so that you rust and crumble away with a single breath! *struggle* *twist* TO THE LAST I GRAPPLE WITH THEE! *pages tear* FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE! *gets spiked by staple*  Ow!
• I concede that quoting Moby Dick might be overkill at this juncture.
• Also, staples probably don't compare to white whales.