Archive for December, 2008
at least one benefit to a delayed flight
I was supposed to fly to Iowa today. I was worried that the weather would get in the way of arriving (it’s supposed to be icy/stormy in Iowa today). Nope. Instead, it was an airplane door that malfunctioned or something. We were in the air above Harrisburg for an hour before returning to the ground [...]
notes from the interblags
• Inside Higher Ed: On the age bias in hiring academics
• Anne-Marie offers some information literacy tools for synonyms
• Matt offers some tools for annotated websites
• Matt also shares some videos about Twitter. This one on ambient intimacy is especially interesting.
• Irene Monreo at Bilerico: Gay is NOT the new black
• Feministe on the Rolling [...]
representing the zietgeist of the last 8 years
Chuck Tryon discusses the recent Newsweek special The Way We Were, which asks some cultural critics to pick a single cultural text that represents the last eight years of Culture under the Bush regime. While pointing out the impossibility of selecting just one text to represent the zeitgeist of the last eight years, Tryon admits [...]
Kant attack ad
A friend sent me this. Funny:
Johnson: Everythign Bad Is Good for You (2006)
Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson
My review
rating: 4 of 5 starsIn Everything Bad is Good for You, Johnson attempts to de-bunk the popular narrative that the culture industry is making us stupider, by feeding us more and more banal television shows, video games, and movies. He argues [...]
everything bad is good for you… and fascinating
I’m reading Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good For You, and my students in English 30 are reading portions of it next term. In the book, Johnson argues that contrary to popular narratives that claim that popular culture is making us dumber, that much of popular culture is actually making us smarter by demanding a [...]
term terminus terminated
This morning, I submitted grades online, marking the completion of the term. Finis. Terminus. Over. Completed.
And it feels good, of course.
Now, I have a lot of work I want to get done over break. Mainly, work on a couple possible articles, work on my CCCC talk, and, of course, work on my course for next [...]
584: Weekly Position Paper #14: Performativity and Subversion: Thomas Beatie Televised in a Gay Bar
This is about two weeks old now, but I forgot to post it.
In Chapter 7 of Beyond Identity Politics, Moya Lloyd discusses the difference between performance and performativity in order to discuss the potentials for parody as subversion. Performativity, she argues, cannot be reduced to simply performance, in part because performance relies on autonomous agency [...]
notes from the interblags: LGBT activism, adjunctification, web accessibility, mismethodology,
• Trans Political responds to the article in The Advocate, “Gay is the New Black.” Trans Political expresses concerns about the disappearance or invisibility of the trans rights movement.
• 365gay.com: Gay marriage is before the Iowa Supreme Court.
• 365gay.com: Nobel Prize Winner predicts an HIV vaccine within 5 years.
• NY Times: Gay marriage is prompting a [...]
closing out the term
Today I finished my last seminar paper of the term and finished grading papers. Woot! The only three things left for this term before moving into work over winter break:
a) grading any revisions students turn in on Friday
b) revising a few things for Intro to Graduate Studies
c) turn in grades
