Archive for February, 2009
Our Undemocratic Constitution
Last week I read Levinson’s Our Undemocratic Constitution, a rather compelling argument that, for various reasons, our Constitution has undemocratic procedures codified in it, and therefore we should have a new constitutional convention. I agree with Levinson’s assessment, but don’t see his call for a new constitutional convention happening anytime soon. As Levinson notes, our [...]
this is what graduate school feels like sometimes
Garfield Minus Garfield Not that reading lots of journal articles and books is really akin to cake, but… sometimes you just wind up staring at it…
Notes on IST Graduate Symposium Microblogging Panel
The 2009 IST Graduate Symposium was yesterday and today, and I completely forgot about it, even after my friend Tom suggested it earlier this week and I noticed that some State College folks I follow on Twitter were talking about it. When I finally realized it, it was a half hour before the final panel, [...]
According to Georgia Law Makers, Queer Theory is Not Legitimate
This was sent out on a listserv I’m on: According to Republican lawmakers in Georgia and the Christian Coalition, queer theory is not a legitimate course of study. On CNN’s American Morning today, Carol Costello reported on Georgia’s recent variation of the age-old debate over what should be taught in our schools. Georgia State University [...]
Levinson’s Peculiar Conclusion and Our Civil Religion
In class last week, we discussed at length the peculiar conclusion to Sanford Levinson’s Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies, in which Levinson writes that we should hope “that the consciousness of the polity, especially of its future generations will be regulated in the proper direction.” For Levinson, it is “our hope that [...]
“literacy” list
The biggest annoyance I have1 is when I tell someone I’m a PhD student in English and they assume I have read every canonical text there is, even after I explain that I study rhetoric and composition. Via Dennis, here’s a Facebook (now blogging — perhaps it was blogging first?) “meme”: BBC Book List Apparently [...]
some random stuff akin to notes to you the reader
• I went to New York City last weekend, as I mentioned in my previous post. State College leaves me unfulfilled in so many ways, but mostly it has to do with the lack of people, diversity, good food, interesting architecture, the carnival — you know, city life. The trip was rejuvenating in ways I couldn’t [...]
English 30 reflections post #3 and my own reading experiences
I’ve been meaning to journal about teaching English 30 a bit more frequently this term, but just haven’t been forcing myself to write this term like I have in the past. So far, I’m excited about the strong conversations my students are having in class — my students are smart, nuanced, and pick up on [...]
textually mediated memory
Professor Browne has asked us to come to class with an artifact today dealing with public memory. Since I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Milk over the last few months, esp. in regards to queer activism and its relationship to its past, I thought I’d “bring in” this trailer to the film:
New Yorker Review of Of Montreal
Heather alerted me to this New Yorker review of Of Montreal, one of my favorite bands. Read it. Kevin Barnes is gorgeous. One of my favorite lines, though: There is a generation of eighties semiotics students who wish that Barnes had been around twenty years earlier, to make critical theory a little easier to use [...]
