updates and notes

Wow, it’s really been a month and a half since my last post. I guest that’s a testament to how busy I’ve felt. I’ve had moments where I’ve wanted to write here, but I’ve felt so exhausted or need to work on something else. It’s a busy term. Nothing new there, though oddly this term seems to be even busier than others. It also seems like I say that every term.

So, what’s new? Last time I wrote I had quit smoking. I failed. I was sick. I got over that, and the migraines stopped, though they’ve returned again. Nothing major — they’re not as debilitating as they have been in the past, but it’s still annoying and prevents getting some work done.

I’m struggling to get my two conflicting drives toward work, organization, and order to collaborate properly. I’m not a huge advocate of astrology (okay, I think it’s bunk), but in this aspect of my life, I think it has explanatory power. I’m a Virgo/Libra cusp, and sometimes my Libra “big picture/balance/go with the flow” aspect takes control, and sometimes my Virgo “everything must be structured, ordered, and scheduled” aspect is in control. The thing is, they can’t find a balance! I tack back and forth between obsessive structuring and laid back big picture it’s all okay. Not a huge deal often, but it seems like one drive kicks in when the other would be more appropriate.

In the works:

• Stuart, Rebecca, and I are working on an article on ebook readers, which was moving along fine and smoothly (though with some delays). Then Stuart got the page proofs back from a book, and we’ve switched over to indexing and proofreading mode, so the article is on the backburner. However, in September and August, I think I skimmed or read a hundred articles on ereading.

• In my Kenneth Burke seminar, I’m working on a paper on Burke’s views on communication technologies in the 1920s/30s. Not really sure where it’s going, but it’s interesting. I’m struggling with his humanist approach, which sees technologies as instruments. But this seminar has been a huge success so far: some of the best discussions I’ve had in a course, some great ideas flowing in class and in my head. Before the course, I think I had read a total of 30 pages of Burke, but now I’ve read the all or most of five of his books, parts of two more, and will read even more of his work. Things I love: His early work in the 30s, and Language as Symbolic Action. Things that weren’t as interesting to me: A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of Motives (though there are certainly things I liked about both books).

For those of you not in rhetoric (if anyone still reads this), Burke is like the 20th century American Aristotle to rhetoric, which has it’s benefits (after all, he wrote about rhetoric from the 1920s to the 1980s), but also some drawbacks (there’s a bit of a fetish for him, I think). But I’ve enjoyed his work quite a bit.

• My Burke seminar led me to learn about Hart Crane, 1920s homosexual poet, who has become a bit of an obsession of mine. I’m working on a paper in another class on him and his poetic theories (what little there is—but it’s rich!), which I’m co-opting (in some way!) into rhetorical theory. We’ll see how this goes. It’s either going to be a major catastrophe or interesting. Either way, I feel a strong pull toward the early 20th century again, one I haven’t felt really since I was an undergraduate. Perhaps it’s the changes of the time: World War I, war technologies, rising communication technologies, changing sexualities.

• My third class’s project is even less conceptualized, but I’m interested vaguely in collective memory, racism, and internet technologies. We’ll see where this develops. But I’ve got to really get pounding on work.

I’m eager for Thanksgiving Break, when I’m flying to Oregon for almost the entire break. I’ll get to see old friends, sit in familiar coffee shops (and research and write!), and hopefully re-charge a bit as well. And Winter Break’s taking me back to Iowa for a bit, and then to visit a friend who’s studying at UT Austin (in urban planning). I’m already thinking about next term, when I’ll be reading for comps (among other things). Of course, I should be thinking about next term. Gotta solidify those comps lists sometime.