Students, please find below an example of an abstract I drafted for submission to the International Congress on Medieval Studies. While it is not formatted as those you are asked to submit should be (for which guidelines look here), its content is of the kind requested. Use it as a model for your own work.
While its appeal has waxed and waned,
the myth of the American cowboy is one that endures in the United States,
continuing to appear in print and on screens big, small, and digital. Although
individual depictions vary, some common features of the paragon of the Western man
appear across decades and in the works of various authors and other artists. The
cowboy is of European descent, most commonly of English extraction (although he
necessarily associates with people of other ethnic backgrounds), frequently
coming from a landed background and having military or militaristic experience.
He is indelibly associated with life on horseback, and commonly carries weapons
for use at long range and in close quarters. More to the point, he lives
according to a strict code of honor, demanding self-reliance and grit in
fighting and holding those who are less able to protect themselves in high
regard; his honor calls for the cowboy to “ride for the brand,” being loyal
even to the point of death to the landed owner of a particular mark or to the
land and mark itself.
In this, the American
cowboy is markedly similar to the knight of Arthurian romance. Not only is he
akin to those who sit at the Round Table in his surface features, but in many
cases, his narrative patterns follow those employed by Malory, the Gawain-poet, their forebears, or their Victorian
medievalist successors, following a single character for a time in additive
adventures that end up repeating their own tropes again and again. His
appearances in the writings of such authors as William W. Johnstone exemplify
the parallels neatly, demonstrating that the Arthurian knight continues to be
refigured and reappropriated in the early twenty-first century.
Showing posts with label Assignments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Assignments. Show all posts
Monday, September 1, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
An Article to Bring to the Attention of ENGL 3323 Students
During my morning reading, I came across Alex Malley's 16 June 2014 LinkedIn piece "Stop Sending out Boring Resumes." In it, Malley offers a few recommendations for reconsideration of how to put together an effective resume. Rethinking the conception of a resume, particularly through a literary metaphor, and having other people review the work before sending it off, are prominent among the suggestions, and they strike the eye as being good ones to follow.
Since one of the prescribed assignments for ENGL 3323 at Oklahoma State University is a job packet, including a resume, I thought the article relevant. For that reason, I tag it here for consideration.
Since one of the prescribed assignments for ENGL 3323 at Oklahoma State University is a job packet, including a resume, I thought the article relevant. For that reason, I tag it here for consideration.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Some Articles, Briefly
Not all of the work I do is in the service of my academic career; a fair bit of it anymore is in freelance writing, working for clients to produce the texts they need. It has proven illuminating thus far, giving me practice in writing quickly and efficiently in a variety of styles and on a variety of subjects. From time to time, it also offers me things that I think might be useful in my teaching endeavors, such as the two articles linked and briefly discussed below.
Gretchen Rubin's 9 October 2013 article "Resentful? Overworked? Face These Painful Facts about Shared Work," posted to The Happiness Project, lays out a number of problems with group projects in the workplace. My own experience and that reported to me by students in the past tells me that the same problems apply to work on such classroom endeavors as the ENGL 3323 group assignments: Internal Proposal and External Analytical Report. Rubin's article might be a useful bit from which to base discussion leading up to the collaborative project. It also offers some useful material for discussion of document design and writing style.
Emily Shepard's 6 December 2013 article, "Films, Media, and Politics: Their Influence on the Devaluation of Women's Bodies," posted to BCRW Blog, investigates in brief how the three noted agents conduce to the way in which women are forced to be their bodies and how those bodies are then rendered of lesser importance. It also moves toward the kind of undergraduate research that is increasingly well regarded among scholars of college composition, as I found when I attended CCCC earlier this year. And it further works as an entry into the kind of online scholarship advocated by Kathleen Fitzpatrick in the 2011 issue of Profession. It might therefore be useful as an introductory example for research papers in ENGL 1213 and ENGL 2413 (although it is far too brief to be a full model for either) or as an example of a revised sort of Creative/Electronic-Media Project for ENGL 3323. (I am not happy with the offerings I have on the course website as of this writing; I will be revising the project information for the Fall 2014 term.)
I will doubtlessly encounter other pieces that may be of interest. If and when I do, I may well post about them to this blog. How many and how often remain to be seen.
Gretchen Rubin's 9 October 2013 article "Resentful? Overworked? Face These Painful Facts about Shared Work," posted to The Happiness Project, lays out a number of problems with group projects in the workplace. My own experience and that reported to me by students in the past tells me that the same problems apply to work on such classroom endeavors as the ENGL 3323 group assignments: Internal Proposal and External Analytical Report. Rubin's article might be a useful bit from which to base discussion leading up to the collaborative project. It also offers some useful material for discussion of document design and writing style.
Emily Shepard's 6 December 2013 article, "Films, Media, and Politics: Their Influence on the Devaluation of Women's Bodies," posted to BCRW Blog, investigates in brief how the three noted agents conduce to the way in which women are forced to be their bodies and how those bodies are then rendered of lesser importance. It also moves toward the kind of undergraduate research that is increasingly well regarded among scholars of college composition, as I found when I attended CCCC earlier this year. And it further works as an entry into the kind of online scholarship advocated by Kathleen Fitzpatrick in the 2011 issue of Profession. It might therefore be useful as an introductory example for research papers in ENGL 1213 and ENGL 2413 (although it is far too brief to be a full model for either) or as an example of a revised sort of Creative/Electronic-Media Project for ENGL 3323. (I am not happy with the offerings I have on the course website as of this writing; I will be revising the project information for the Fall 2014 term.)
I will doubtlessly encounter other pieces that may be of interest. If and when I do, I may well post about them to this blog. How many and how often remain to be seen.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Sample Textual Analysis: About "Why Other Countries Teach Better"
Students, please find below an example of the kind of textual analysis discussed here. Please note that, when formatted for submission (as the present version is not, owing to the medium), it is most of four pages in length, comfortably within the assigned length for your own submission.
On 17 December 2013, the editors of the New York Times published "Why Other Countries Teach Better." In the article, the authors assert that the United States needs to adopt some of the teaching methods employed in other countries if the deficiencies of its workers' reasoning skills are to remain competitive against those of workers in other places. Pedagogical practices in Finland, Canada, and Shanghai are offered as the primary examples; Finland's emphasis on teacher training and retention, Canada's on equality of school funding, and Shanghai's on intra-cultural integration are presented as both singularly effective and markedly different from practices in the United States. Each country is also portrayed as performing better than the United States in terms of teaching its children. Such portrayals speak to an expectation on the part of the editors that their readers are going to be relatively politically liberal and comparatively Western-centric. Indications thereof are in the nature of the publication itself, the consistent depictions of motions toward egalitarianism, and the examples selected for support of the article's central argument.
That the New York Times aims at a relatively liberal readership is to be expected. As the major newspaper of New York City, the Times can be expected to reflect or directly address the needs and understandings of the populace of New York City--and that population is generally considered liberal, as determined by voting patterns and prevalence of social programs. The US House of Representatives reports in its directory that all but one of the representatives sent to Congress from the many Congressional districts of New York City is Democrat, and the Democratic Party is strongly associated with liberal politics. That New York is represented by Democrats, then, marks it as liberal, as does the prevalence of public services available. Extensive public library systems, public transit, and housing assistance typify New York City, and the city supports an independent system of colleges through the City University of New York. Each contributes to a massive network of public services available, and that network bespeaks the overall liberal tenor of the Big Apple. The New York Times will, as what is still at some level a local newspaper, respond to the perceived needs of the identifiably liberal populace, making it more likely to be itself liberal.
Similarly, it is to be expected that the Times will aim at a Western-centered readership. New York City is often figured as a distillation of the United States, particularly since it is regarded as the major point of entry for many of the people who immigrated to the United States from Western Europe. It is, in effect, the epicenter of Americanness, and the United States is typically viewed (by itself and others) as the pivotal Western country. New York City thus becomes among the most Western of Western places, and its local newspaper will necessarily respond thereto. Also, the major language of publication of the newspaper is English, a West Germanic language (Baugh and Cable 33-34); even in its primary tongue, the paper speaks to a Western audience.
It is not only in the inherent features of the publication that the article indicates its intended audience; it also addresses a liberal readership in its consistent motions towards the egalitarian in its discussion. One of the underpinnings of liberal political thought is that people deserve to be given equal opportunity, by which is meant beginning on an equal footing. This tends to imply that explicit measures need to be taken to address systematic inequalities, which is to say that civil programs should tend towards the egalitarian. The article points out social structures in its examples that function in such a way. Finland, for example, is shown as providing non means-tested services to students, meaning that need is not a feature in determining what students receive; it is also emphasized that its educational system was set up to "provide a quality, high-level education for poor and wealthy alike." Similarly, the point is made that "Finnish teachers are not drawn to the profession by the money; they earn only slightly more than the national average salary," which presents a normalizing idea consistent with egalitarian ideas. A like point is made with Canada in the note that "Americans tend to see such inequalities as the natural order of things. Canadians do not," and another is made in commenting that Shanghai "has mainly moved away from an elitist system." Each tends to the idea of better schooling coming from the egalitarian, and so each seems pitched to speak to liberal readers.
The egalitarianism is also framed in terms likely to appeal to Western readers. For example, Canada is used as almost a byword for egalitarian practices in the United States--already identified as a major pivot of the Western world. Its egalitarianism, then, is particularly accessible to that most Western of audiences, and its depiction in the New York Times thus bespeaks an expectation that the audience of the article will derive mostly from the Western world. Similarly, the egalitarianism in Shanghai is framed largely in terms of including the children of migrant workers, putting it into terms likely to resonate with the prototypically Western readers in New York City, a city that makes much of its immigrant history, and of the rest of the United States, which grapples with the idea of migrant workers and their children.
The authors' examples seem calculated to speak directly to liberal readers. Finland is frequently held up as a model of centralized governmental control. The egalitarianism that is typically linked to Canada is linked to it by way of liberal policies; it is typically framed in terms of government programs that are at odds with prevailing conservative ideas of appropriate civil structures. Shanghai, as part of China, is linked with communist doctrine, and communism is seen as the excess of liberalism. That the examples are used indicates that the authors believe they will be received well by the audience; the authors have to expect that the readers will react well to them. That they are expected to react well suggests that the assumed readership is fundamentally liberal in orientation.
The choice of examples from which to make the argument indicates also the expectation that the readers of the article will be Western. Finland, as a Nordic country, is decidedly Western. Canada, as part of the British Commonwealth, is, as well. Shanghai might appear to be the outlying example, but Kerrie L. MacPherson of the University of Hong Kong calls it "China's historically most capitalist place" (37), and capitalism is the defining philosophy of the modern Western world. As such, it joins Finland and Canada in being familiar to Western readers, its invocation a means for the authors to address a Western readership.
That biases towards the Western liberal can be detected in "Why Other Countries Teach Better" does not mean that the article does not do well to raise several points; educational excellence should be a concern of the people of the United States, and it is not yet sufficiently in place (if it ever can be). What the detectable biases do oblige, however, is careful consideration; while bias is inevitable, it must be known to be accounted for, and it must be accounted for if the works within which it is present are to be used ethically and responsibly. Such use does much to allow for greater understanding among divergent ideologies; each has something to offer, but that offer can only be known if the source can be acknowledged, and sifting through bias is necessary for that acknowledgement to occur.
Works Cited
On 17 December 2013, the editors of the New York Times published "Why Other Countries Teach Better." In the article, the authors assert that the United States needs to adopt some of the teaching methods employed in other countries if the deficiencies of its workers' reasoning skills are to remain competitive against those of workers in other places. Pedagogical practices in Finland, Canada, and Shanghai are offered as the primary examples; Finland's emphasis on teacher training and retention, Canada's on equality of school funding, and Shanghai's on intra-cultural integration are presented as both singularly effective and markedly different from practices in the United States. Each country is also portrayed as performing better than the United States in terms of teaching its children. Such portrayals speak to an expectation on the part of the editors that their readers are going to be relatively politically liberal and comparatively Western-centric. Indications thereof are in the nature of the publication itself, the consistent depictions of motions toward egalitarianism, and the examples selected for support of the article's central argument.
That the New York Times aims at a relatively liberal readership is to be expected. As the major newspaper of New York City, the Times can be expected to reflect or directly address the needs and understandings of the populace of New York City--and that population is generally considered liberal, as determined by voting patterns and prevalence of social programs. The US House of Representatives reports in its directory that all but one of the representatives sent to Congress from the many Congressional districts of New York City is Democrat, and the Democratic Party is strongly associated with liberal politics. That New York is represented by Democrats, then, marks it as liberal, as does the prevalence of public services available. Extensive public library systems, public transit, and housing assistance typify New York City, and the city supports an independent system of colleges through the City University of New York. Each contributes to a massive network of public services available, and that network bespeaks the overall liberal tenor of the Big Apple. The New York Times will, as what is still at some level a local newspaper, respond to the perceived needs of the identifiably liberal populace, making it more likely to be itself liberal.
Similarly, it is to be expected that the Times will aim at a Western-centered readership. New York City is often figured as a distillation of the United States, particularly since it is regarded as the major point of entry for many of the people who immigrated to the United States from Western Europe. It is, in effect, the epicenter of Americanness, and the United States is typically viewed (by itself and others) as the pivotal Western country. New York City thus becomes among the most Western of Western places, and its local newspaper will necessarily respond thereto. Also, the major language of publication of the newspaper is English, a West Germanic language (Baugh and Cable 33-34); even in its primary tongue, the paper speaks to a Western audience.
It is not only in the inherent features of the publication that the article indicates its intended audience; it also addresses a liberal readership in its consistent motions towards the egalitarian in its discussion. One of the underpinnings of liberal political thought is that people deserve to be given equal opportunity, by which is meant beginning on an equal footing. This tends to imply that explicit measures need to be taken to address systematic inequalities, which is to say that civil programs should tend towards the egalitarian. The article points out social structures in its examples that function in such a way. Finland, for example, is shown as providing non means-tested services to students, meaning that need is not a feature in determining what students receive; it is also emphasized that its educational system was set up to "provide a quality, high-level education for poor and wealthy alike." Similarly, the point is made that "Finnish teachers are not drawn to the profession by the money; they earn only slightly more than the national average salary," which presents a normalizing idea consistent with egalitarian ideas. A like point is made with Canada in the note that "Americans tend to see such inequalities as the natural order of things. Canadians do not," and another is made in commenting that Shanghai "has mainly moved away from an elitist system." Each tends to the idea of better schooling coming from the egalitarian, and so each seems pitched to speak to liberal readers.
The egalitarianism is also framed in terms likely to appeal to Western readers. For example, Canada is used as almost a byword for egalitarian practices in the United States--already identified as a major pivot of the Western world. Its egalitarianism, then, is particularly accessible to that most Western of audiences, and its depiction in the New York Times thus bespeaks an expectation that the audience of the article will derive mostly from the Western world. Similarly, the egalitarianism in Shanghai is framed largely in terms of including the children of migrant workers, putting it into terms likely to resonate with the prototypically Western readers in New York City, a city that makes much of its immigrant history, and of the rest of the United States, which grapples with the idea of migrant workers and their children.
The authors' examples seem calculated to speak directly to liberal readers. Finland is frequently held up as a model of centralized governmental control. The egalitarianism that is typically linked to Canada is linked to it by way of liberal policies; it is typically framed in terms of government programs that are at odds with prevailing conservative ideas of appropriate civil structures. Shanghai, as part of China, is linked with communist doctrine, and communism is seen as the excess of liberalism. That the examples are used indicates that the authors believe they will be received well by the audience; the authors have to expect that the readers will react well to them. That they are expected to react well suggests that the assumed readership is fundamentally liberal in orientation.
The choice of examples from which to make the argument indicates also the expectation that the readers of the article will be Western. Finland, as a Nordic country, is decidedly Western. Canada, as part of the British Commonwealth, is, as well. Shanghai might appear to be the outlying example, but Kerrie L. MacPherson of the University of Hong Kong calls it "China's historically most capitalist place" (37), and capitalism is the defining philosophy of the modern Western world. As such, it joins Finland and Canada in being familiar to Western readers, its invocation a means for the authors to address a Western readership.
That biases towards the Western liberal can be detected in "Why Other Countries Teach Better" does not mean that the article does not do well to raise several points; educational excellence should be a concern of the people of the United States, and it is not yet sufficiently in place (if it ever can be). What the detectable biases do oblige, however, is careful consideration; while bias is inevitable, it must be known to be accounted for, and it must be accounted for if the works within which it is present are to be used ethically and responsibly. Such use does much to allow for greater understanding among divergent ideologies; each has something to offer, but that offer can only be known if the source can be acknowledged, and sifting through bias is necessary for that acknowledgement to occur.
Works Cited
- Baugh, Albert C., and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. Fifth ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002. Print.
- "Directory of Represetatives." House.gov. US House of Representatives, n.d. Web. 28 February 2014.
- MacPherson, Kerrie L. "Shanghai's History: Back to the Future." Harvard Asia Pacific Review 6.1 (Spring 2002): 37-40. PDF file.
- "Why Other Countries Teach Better." NYTimes.com. New York Times, 17 December 2013. Web. 28 February 2014.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Sample Profile: Morrill 411
Below is an example of a profile of the kind requested from my students in ENGL 1113 at Oklahoma State University. When formatted for submission (as the current medium prohibits), it is approximately four and one-third pages, comfortably within the required assignment length.
I have had office space more or less continually since I began graduate school in 2005. Sometimes, I have been lucky enough not to have to share it; there is a certain comfort in having a bit of private space at work, a place to which to retreat from the demands of the workplace and attend to the actual job rather than political concerns and the din of hallway and classroom. More often, though, I have shared my office space with others. Such situations present challenges, certainly; the typical work of the scholar in the humanities is one which rewards and is aided by isolation and quiet, which shared office space tends to preclude. But they also offer much enrichment through the very things that keep them from being optimal spaces for focused scholarly pursuits; my current office in room 411 of Morrill Hall has not failed in it.
I have given it every opportunity to show its quality to me (as has been the case with every office I have had). My office hours are as they are and as they are required to be, but I spend much time in Morrill 411 outside of those hours. On many teaching days, I stay in or near the office until six in the evening, grading papers, reading ahead, and writing (whether for my students or for myself depends on the day, what is due for them, and what is due for me). It is not unheard-of for me to come in on days I do not teach, as well, including the odd Saturday or Sunday. Many hours spent in the office across many days breeds much familiarity with it.
It is from intimate knowledge, then, that I can say the room hardly bespeaks the professorial dignity. Tucked up under the slanting roof of the old building, Morrill 411 is a bland, yellowish thing in both floor and walls, and the fluorescent light the bland tiling and uninspired paint job reflect to the ceiling's acoustic tiles hues them similarly. Only some of the furnishings (solid desks with colorful chairs, steel bookcases and two of wood, the occasional wall hanging in bright plumage or patterned purple) alleviate the dreary palette--along with the sky-painted support column that confronts those who walk through the poorly-braced door and obscures sight of the hallway from several of the room's assigned occupants. The bookcases themselves are filled more with the work of students long since gone and textbooks considered and rejected than with scholarly apparatus, the journals and books with which the members of the professoriate prepare themselves for their teaching duties and carry out the investigation of new thoughts and ideas. It hardly fits the traditional image of the distinguished, tweed-clad knowledge-seeker, sitting quietly and contentedly in a wood-paneled room surrounded by books and steadily pushing back the boundaries of human understanding.
Yet there are excellent things about the office's physicality. For one, it is well ventilated; a large vent and a return register are both present, so that the air in the office is always moving, conveying a sense of freshness and the sense somehow that the building yet lives because it breathes. Too, it is positioned well. The eastern stair of the building--which is that nearest to the restrooms on the third and second floors--is nearby and so easily accessible, yet not so nearby that the sounds of those using the stairs resound in the room. The lone and agonizingly slow elevator in the building is similarly close, facilitating use but suppressing the experience of the noise. A janitorial closet is not far off, offering access to cleaning supplies and to better custodial care. And the fourth-floor lounge, in which are a printer, a refrigerator, and a microwave, is directly across the hall, so that it is a short walk for the occupants of Morrill 411 to produce papers or prepare the scanty meals that many take throughout the day.
Even the drabness of the room helps Morrill 411 to offer benefits to its occupants. The lack of interest of floor, walls, and ceiling forces attention to be paid to other things than the mere physical surroundings (and it can serve as a calming anesthetic for those whose minds occasionally need such things). The lack of scholarly apparatus promotes instead a focus on collegiality; in the idle moments between classes, when grading is done but not enough time remains to head out for a meal or a drink before the next class begins or the next staff meeting, there are colleagues present and similarly waiting. It offers the opportunity for intense, far-ranging conversations in which teaching styles and techniques are discussed and exchanged, and ideas for new research (to be conducted at other sites, usually) are batted about in the attempt to ascertain if they are worth pursuing and in what ways. More involved decor on the walls would compel attention on its own, and that attention would detract somewhat from the ability of the occupants to focus on what the others are doing. It would call attention to itself and thereby call it away from the interchange of ideas that serves to make an increasingly cohesive group from the assigned occupants of Morrill 411.
The sense of community is not only fostered by the drabness of the room demanding other outlets for the occupants' thoughts and deeds. The openness of layout also adds to the sense of connectedness. Many of the desks face one another, and no partitions separate even those which face away. A human face is therefore nearly always within a turn of the head, so a human connection is nearly always within reach in Morrill 411. That connection is often the opportunity to watch colleagues at work; those assigned to the office are frequently present while others confer with students, so that they are able to see student engagement techniques in the moment of application and to discuss them shortly thereafter. The immediacy of the demonstrations helps to improve the teaching for which the occupants are paid as they are and breeds a common body of practice among them, with all adding their best to the others' repertoires. And even in the absence of others, the sure knowledge of the presence of others is available in the room. Chairs not pushed in bespeak people having left in haste, and the occasional dish or cup left on the desk shows that living people have been in the place. Even the choices of books that some leave on display on their desks bespeak them, so that if they are not themselves present, the shape of their presence can easily be seen. A more restricted environment such as individual offices or the corporate cubicle farm would prohibit such things or would at least impede them; the openness of Morrill 411 almost demands of its occupants engagement with others, serving as a corrective to the hermit-impulse to which those who engage in humanistic study are too often prone.
Part of a sense of community is the impression that its members protect one another, and Morrill 411 lends itself to that protection. Its location, so convenient to both stairwell and elevator, makes it likely that others will happen by the office at odd moments, and the near-certainty that someone else will be present and therefore a potential witness serves as a deterrent to bad behavior for professors and students. It is also next to the office of a program director, a figure of authority in the department to whom questions can be easily posed and whose agency can be readily invoked because of the proximity. Similarly, the possible presence of any or all of the other assigned occupants of the office at any given moment--for all who are assigned to Morrill 411 have keys to it and to the building itself--means that those who do occupy the office have easy access to people who know them and are inclined to vouch for them if the need should arise. Too, that access to others means that there are, in the worst case, other hands with which to fight. (That physical violence happen is not desired, certainly, but the possibility for it exists and must be taken into account therefore.)
Part of the sense of community Morrill 411 offers is that of history; the office and its occupants existed as a body before. The building itself is among the oldest at Oklahoma State University; its cornerstone notes it as being built in the first decade of the twentieth century. It is therefore among the fixtures of the campus, presiding over many generations of students. It also connects Oklahoma State University to some of the noblest traditions of public service, for it is named after the man whose efforts allowed such land-grant institutions as Oklahoma State University to be; the building and its inhabitants are therefore made akin to the greater public academy, to the enrichment of all. And the office itself bears the marks of its former inhabitants; nails protrude from where earlier occupants drove them in to hang things, the bookcases in place still carry the loads earlier occupants placed upon them, and some of those occupants have themselves been in place for many years. To sit in Morrill 411, then, is to sit amid a living history; to be assigned to occupy it is to participate in and extend that history; and to participate in the history of a thing is to partake of its community.
Although I miss my former, private offices, and although I look forward to having one once again, I do not scorn the many things that the shared space of Morrill 411 offers me. At a minimum, it offers me a place where I can belong among the faculty of the institution, and having a place is a comfort, indeed.
I have had office space more or less continually since I began graduate school in 2005. Sometimes, I have been lucky enough not to have to share it; there is a certain comfort in having a bit of private space at work, a place to which to retreat from the demands of the workplace and attend to the actual job rather than political concerns and the din of hallway and classroom. More often, though, I have shared my office space with others. Such situations present challenges, certainly; the typical work of the scholar in the humanities is one which rewards and is aided by isolation and quiet, which shared office space tends to preclude. But they also offer much enrichment through the very things that keep them from being optimal spaces for focused scholarly pursuits; my current office in room 411 of Morrill Hall has not failed in it.
I have given it every opportunity to show its quality to me (as has been the case with every office I have had). My office hours are as they are and as they are required to be, but I spend much time in Morrill 411 outside of those hours. On many teaching days, I stay in or near the office until six in the evening, grading papers, reading ahead, and writing (whether for my students or for myself depends on the day, what is due for them, and what is due for me). It is not unheard-of for me to come in on days I do not teach, as well, including the odd Saturday or Sunday. Many hours spent in the office across many days breeds much familiarity with it.
It is from intimate knowledge, then, that I can say the room hardly bespeaks the professorial dignity. Tucked up under the slanting roof of the old building, Morrill 411 is a bland, yellowish thing in both floor and walls, and the fluorescent light the bland tiling and uninspired paint job reflect to the ceiling's acoustic tiles hues them similarly. Only some of the furnishings (solid desks with colorful chairs, steel bookcases and two of wood, the occasional wall hanging in bright plumage or patterned purple) alleviate the dreary palette--along with the sky-painted support column that confronts those who walk through the poorly-braced door and obscures sight of the hallway from several of the room's assigned occupants. The bookcases themselves are filled more with the work of students long since gone and textbooks considered and rejected than with scholarly apparatus, the journals and books with which the members of the professoriate prepare themselves for their teaching duties and carry out the investigation of new thoughts and ideas. It hardly fits the traditional image of the distinguished, tweed-clad knowledge-seeker, sitting quietly and contentedly in a wood-paneled room surrounded by books and steadily pushing back the boundaries of human understanding.
Yet there are excellent things about the office's physicality. For one, it is well ventilated; a large vent and a return register are both present, so that the air in the office is always moving, conveying a sense of freshness and the sense somehow that the building yet lives because it breathes. Too, it is positioned well. The eastern stair of the building--which is that nearest to the restrooms on the third and second floors--is nearby and so easily accessible, yet not so nearby that the sounds of those using the stairs resound in the room. The lone and agonizingly slow elevator in the building is similarly close, facilitating use but suppressing the experience of the noise. A janitorial closet is not far off, offering access to cleaning supplies and to better custodial care. And the fourth-floor lounge, in which are a printer, a refrigerator, and a microwave, is directly across the hall, so that it is a short walk for the occupants of Morrill 411 to produce papers or prepare the scanty meals that many take throughout the day.
Even the drabness of the room helps Morrill 411 to offer benefits to its occupants. The lack of interest of floor, walls, and ceiling forces attention to be paid to other things than the mere physical surroundings (and it can serve as a calming anesthetic for those whose minds occasionally need such things). The lack of scholarly apparatus promotes instead a focus on collegiality; in the idle moments between classes, when grading is done but not enough time remains to head out for a meal or a drink before the next class begins or the next staff meeting, there are colleagues present and similarly waiting. It offers the opportunity for intense, far-ranging conversations in which teaching styles and techniques are discussed and exchanged, and ideas for new research (to be conducted at other sites, usually) are batted about in the attempt to ascertain if they are worth pursuing and in what ways. More involved decor on the walls would compel attention on its own, and that attention would detract somewhat from the ability of the occupants to focus on what the others are doing. It would call attention to itself and thereby call it away from the interchange of ideas that serves to make an increasingly cohesive group from the assigned occupants of Morrill 411.
The sense of community is not only fostered by the drabness of the room demanding other outlets for the occupants' thoughts and deeds. The openness of layout also adds to the sense of connectedness. Many of the desks face one another, and no partitions separate even those which face away. A human face is therefore nearly always within a turn of the head, so a human connection is nearly always within reach in Morrill 411. That connection is often the opportunity to watch colleagues at work; those assigned to the office are frequently present while others confer with students, so that they are able to see student engagement techniques in the moment of application and to discuss them shortly thereafter. The immediacy of the demonstrations helps to improve the teaching for which the occupants are paid as they are and breeds a common body of practice among them, with all adding their best to the others' repertoires. And even in the absence of others, the sure knowledge of the presence of others is available in the room. Chairs not pushed in bespeak people having left in haste, and the occasional dish or cup left on the desk shows that living people have been in the place. Even the choices of books that some leave on display on their desks bespeak them, so that if they are not themselves present, the shape of their presence can easily be seen. A more restricted environment such as individual offices or the corporate cubicle farm would prohibit such things or would at least impede them; the openness of Morrill 411 almost demands of its occupants engagement with others, serving as a corrective to the hermit-impulse to which those who engage in humanistic study are too often prone.
Part of a sense of community is the impression that its members protect one another, and Morrill 411 lends itself to that protection. Its location, so convenient to both stairwell and elevator, makes it likely that others will happen by the office at odd moments, and the near-certainty that someone else will be present and therefore a potential witness serves as a deterrent to bad behavior for professors and students. It is also next to the office of a program director, a figure of authority in the department to whom questions can be easily posed and whose agency can be readily invoked because of the proximity. Similarly, the possible presence of any or all of the other assigned occupants of the office at any given moment--for all who are assigned to Morrill 411 have keys to it and to the building itself--means that those who do occupy the office have easy access to people who know them and are inclined to vouch for them if the need should arise. Too, that access to others means that there are, in the worst case, other hands with which to fight. (That physical violence happen is not desired, certainly, but the possibility for it exists and must be taken into account therefore.)
Part of the sense of community Morrill 411 offers is that of history; the office and its occupants existed as a body before. The building itself is among the oldest at Oklahoma State University; its cornerstone notes it as being built in the first decade of the twentieth century. It is therefore among the fixtures of the campus, presiding over many generations of students. It also connects Oklahoma State University to some of the noblest traditions of public service, for it is named after the man whose efforts allowed such land-grant institutions as Oklahoma State University to be; the building and its inhabitants are therefore made akin to the greater public academy, to the enrichment of all. And the office itself bears the marks of its former inhabitants; nails protrude from where earlier occupants drove them in to hang things, the bookcases in place still carry the loads earlier occupants placed upon them, and some of those occupants have themselves been in place for many years. To sit in Morrill 411, then, is to sit amid a living history; to be assigned to occupy it is to participate in and extend that history; and to participate in the history of a thing is to partake of its community.
Although I miss my former, private offices, and although I look forward to having one once again, I do not scorn the many things that the shared space of Morrill 411 offers me. At a minimum, it offers me a place where I can belong among the faculty of the institution, and having a place is a comfort, indeed.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
A Comment about the Spring 2014 Literacy Narrative
The literacy narrative I assigned to my students at Oklahoma State University in the Spring 2014 term focuses on redeeming a literacy experience thought negative at the time of its occurrence. I have exhorted my students to consider something bad that has happened to them in terms of their literacy and to look for how that thing has been made good in the time since. My initial, and admittedly cursory, review of their drafts has shown me that many students are focusing too much on the bad and not enough upon how it has become good for them; the latter is treated in a paragraph or two at most, when it really ought to be the bulk of the paper. (And I have tried to model it in the literacy narrative example I posted for them.)
The specific prompt of the assignment is something I take from my experience as a graduate student. Early in my master's curriculum, I had a class in how to teach composition. (I am fortunate to have been explicitly trained in how to do so; I know that many who are asked to teach that most common college course are asked to do so without the benefit of such a thing.) Part of doing so involved the students in the class discussing what brought them into the study of English, particularly at the graduate level. I will not go into the details of my own discussion, although I will note that the essay I wrote (badly) in response to the assignment has the subtitle "My Plan B in English." The professor (who has since moved on to publish more excellent scholarship and to take on an administrative position at a prestigious, if relatively small, school) left on it a comment indicating that her hope for me was that I would be able to someday rewrite the piece as a success story.
I am not in such a place yet as will allow me to do so. But I am in such a place that I can hope my own students will begin for themselves the work I have not yet completed and can therein perhaps not continue to abuse themselves with misconceptions about their own failures. I can hope that they do not make the mistakes I have made; that they will err is certain, as it is for us all, but I hope that they will make new and better mistakes.
And, just to clarify, I had determined the topic before I read this piece. But I appreciate the piece, nonetheless, and recommend it to my students (again) for their consideration.
The specific prompt of the assignment is something I take from my experience as a graduate student. Early in my master's curriculum, I had a class in how to teach composition. (I am fortunate to have been explicitly trained in how to do so; I know that many who are asked to teach that most common college course are asked to do so without the benefit of such a thing.) Part of doing so involved the students in the class discussing what brought them into the study of English, particularly at the graduate level. I will not go into the details of my own discussion, although I will note that the essay I wrote (badly) in response to the assignment has the subtitle "My Plan B in English." The professor (who has since moved on to publish more excellent scholarship and to take on an administrative position at a prestigious, if relatively small, school) left on it a comment indicating that her hope for me was that I would be able to someday rewrite the piece as a success story.
I am not in such a place yet as will allow me to do so. But I am in such a place that I can hope my own students will begin for themselves the work I have not yet completed and can therein perhaps not continue to abuse themselves with misconceptions about their own failures. I can hope that they do not make the mistakes I have made; that they will err is certain, as it is for us all, but I hope that they will make new and better mistakes.
And, just to clarify, I had determined the topic before I read this piece. But I appreciate the piece, nonetheless, and recommend it to my students (again) for their consideration.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Sample Literacy Narrative: Recognizing a Dissertation Error
Students, please find below a draft of an example of the kind of writing expected from you in your literacy narrative, as discussed here. When formatted for submission as a paper (which it currently is not, owing to the differences in media), it is of approximately three and a third pages in length, comfortably within what is acceptable for your own submissions.
One of the things expected of those in the professoriate is that they will publish books, the first of which for those professing in the humanities is usually revision and expansion of the dissertation. It might seem counter-intuitive to need to do so; the dissertation is supposed to be a capstone experience in which a scholar demonstrates the ability to make an original contribution to human knowledge. It is supposed to be a highly polished product of years of intensive study and research, thoroughly vetted by several already-established professors, and defended in an open forum from the attacks of colleagues and the occasional departmental enemy. To think it is not good enough boggles the mind--yet it is the case that dissertations need revision.
I have been at slow work on my own, poring once again over the pages that I pored over for years on the way to earning my doctorate, reading again the words I have written. In doing so, it occurred to me that I ought to follow up on one of the footnotes in my dissertation. The note seemed to be a good idea for a paper, and I need to get more papers written so that my students appear the better for having studied under my kind tutelage, and so I began to do a bit of research to see if the idea voiced in it, an idea proceeding from one of the major assertions of the analysis underlying my second dissertation chapter, would work. And I found to my dismay that it did not; I had used something fundamentally wrong to support a full chapter of my dissertation.
The realization embarrassed me greatly, and in that shame, I began again to question my worth. Had I wasted the years spent in study (a question already too much prevalent among those who study the humanities)? Had the time reading deeply and putting words together well and revising those words against the sometimes harsh comments of my committee members been for nothing? Had I been promoted out of pity or out of political concerns rather than because of my merits as a scholar? Was I a fraud to think that I have any expertise in literature? Did I deserve to get to do what I do, to enjoy what is still in some senses a privileged position as a professor of the humanities? My head reeled with such questions and began to range to darker ones yet, and hope began to flee from me.
The development of new knowledge begins with questions, however, and those I asked myself in a frenetic approach to despair began to lead me to other ideas. Perhaps, if my receipt of the degree was political, I was used, but used to an end worth achieving. Perhaps my committee had not noticed the error because even my faulty knowledge in the field surpassed their own--and they are mighty among scholars, so that it is no small thing to stand above them in even so small a way and so limited a set of circumstances. Perhaps the error had escaped attention because it was overshadowed by the other points of proof in the chapter and in the dissertation as a whole, and if it is the case that my other work was so good, I have every right to take pride and be confident in it.
That pride, though, ought to motivate me not to rest easy upon success, but to build upon it and thus come to enjoy more success. If my dissertation is deficient, I have a place in which to improve. If the avenue through which I had thought to develop new knowledge and understanding is closed, its pavement torn up to expose the pipes as corroding away, I can turn to find an alternate route, one that may well offer better scenery or a shorter trip than that to which I had become accustomed. Exploring it will help me to better know the geography of the texts I study, and that cannot but improve my ability to conduct work in the field.
Emboldened by such thoughts, I considered the matter further (although I note with some chagrin that the consideration interfered with my work on revising the dissertation). In recognizing the error, I was reminded that no work of human writing is ever truly finished; there is always more to be said, always more to be discovered, and so no statement of learning ever truly concludes. Even if I cease to work on a project, another may take it up, responding to what I write as my writing responds to that which others do. Improvement is always possible, and there is some comfort in recalling that. Certainly, such comfort upbuoyed me as I regarded my dissertation.
Too, I found a strange solace in the reminder to be humble. I exulted in the completion of my dissertation; I shouted for joy when I sent the final draft of it to my committee members, and I danced in jubilation when they said to me over the phone (for I defended my dissertation remotely from New York City to my graduate school in southwest Louisiana) "Congratulations, Dr. Elliott." It was fitting that I do so; I had labored on it long, and the labor was not easy, for I had to secure the approval of four professors, and their opinions were neither kindly couched nor always in accord with one another. Yet I needed to remember that the dissertation is only one thing, one small part of the human knowledge I had advanced; more was already known than I will ever know, and certainly there is more to add to it. And against that awesome truth, even while celebration is at times warranted, humility is appropriate.
As I think on the matter again while I write about it, a notion related to that of humility occurs to me: the error is a useful piece of my teaching. Since my earliest childhood, I have known that I am supposed to be in the classroom, whether in the seats or standing in front of them. There are times as an instructor that I have looked out over my students and felt the power my hard-won knowledge gives me over them. I fall too easily into condemnation of them because I approach the world from the perspective of my study; the recognition of error serves to remind me that I am still very much learning, and so I ought to have a little more compassion for those who have not struggled to do so for so long as I have and are therefore not yet where I now stand. It also serves to show my students that the process of revision is one all who will write must perform. I am not exempt from it despite my graduate degrees in English and years of experience teaching writing, so they who have yet to do such things should not think that they are themselves removed from the need to improve their work. And it allows me to model one of the many things I hope my students learn from my instruction; with luck, my doing so may at some point serve as a guide for their own labors in that regard.
Even in its deficiency, then, the dissertation has worked to better me as a scholar. I have a focus for the development of new knowledge because of it, and I can improve upon how I disseminate that knowledge. Thus, I address both of the scholar's tasks and hopefully make things better for those who will follow after me.
One of the things expected of those in the professoriate is that they will publish books, the first of which for those professing in the humanities is usually revision and expansion of the dissertation. It might seem counter-intuitive to need to do so; the dissertation is supposed to be a capstone experience in which a scholar demonstrates the ability to make an original contribution to human knowledge. It is supposed to be a highly polished product of years of intensive study and research, thoroughly vetted by several already-established professors, and defended in an open forum from the attacks of colleagues and the occasional departmental enemy. To think it is not good enough boggles the mind--yet it is the case that dissertations need revision.
I have been at slow work on my own, poring once again over the pages that I pored over for years on the way to earning my doctorate, reading again the words I have written. In doing so, it occurred to me that I ought to follow up on one of the footnotes in my dissertation. The note seemed to be a good idea for a paper, and I need to get more papers written so that my students appear the better for having studied under my kind tutelage, and so I began to do a bit of research to see if the idea voiced in it, an idea proceeding from one of the major assertions of the analysis underlying my second dissertation chapter, would work. And I found to my dismay that it did not; I had used something fundamentally wrong to support a full chapter of my dissertation.
The realization embarrassed me greatly, and in that shame, I began again to question my worth. Had I wasted the years spent in study (a question already too much prevalent among those who study the humanities)? Had the time reading deeply and putting words together well and revising those words against the sometimes harsh comments of my committee members been for nothing? Had I been promoted out of pity or out of political concerns rather than because of my merits as a scholar? Was I a fraud to think that I have any expertise in literature? Did I deserve to get to do what I do, to enjoy what is still in some senses a privileged position as a professor of the humanities? My head reeled with such questions and began to range to darker ones yet, and hope began to flee from me.
The development of new knowledge begins with questions, however, and those I asked myself in a frenetic approach to despair began to lead me to other ideas. Perhaps, if my receipt of the degree was political, I was used, but used to an end worth achieving. Perhaps my committee had not noticed the error because even my faulty knowledge in the field surpassed their own--and they are mighty among scholars, so that it is no small thing to stand above them in even so small a way and so limited a set of circumstances. Perhaps the error had escaped attention because it was overshadowed by the other points of proof in the chapter and in the dissertation as a whole, and if it is the case that my other work was so good, I have every right to take pride and be confident in it.
That pride, though, ought to motivate me not to rest easy upon success, but to build upon it and thus come to enjoy more success. If my dissertation is deficient, I have a place in which to improve. If the avenue through which I had thought to develop new knowledge and understanding is closed, its pavement torn up to expose the pipes as corroding away, I can turn to find an alternate route, one that may well offer better scenery or a shorter trip than that to which I had become accustomed. Exploring it will help me to better know the geography of the texts I study, and that cannot but improve my ability to conduct work in the field.
Emboldened by such thoughts, I considered the matter further (although I note with some chagrin that the consideration interfered with my work on revising the dissertation). In recognizing the error, I was reminded that no work of human writing is ever truly finished; there is always more to be said, always more to be discovered, and so no statement of learning ever truly concludes. Even if I cease to work on a project, another may take it up, responding to what I write as my writing responds to that which others do. Improvement is always possible, and there is some comfort in recalling that. Certainly, such comfort upbuoyed me as I regarded my dissertation.
Too, I found a strange solace in the reminder to be humble. I exulted in the completion of my dissertation; I shouted for joy when I sent the final draft of it to my committee members, and I danced in jubilation when they said to me over the phone (for I defended my dissertation remotely from New York City to my graduate school in southwest Louisiana) "Congratulations, Dr. Elliott." It was fitting that I do so; I had labored on it long, and the labor was not easy, for I had to secure the approval of four professors, and their opinions were neither kindly couched nor always in accord with one another. Yet I needed to remember that the dissertation is only one thing, one small part of the human knowledge I had advanced; more was already known than I will ever know, and certainly there is more to add to it. And against that awesome truth, even while celebration is at times warranted, humility is appropriate.
As I think on the matter again while I write about it, a notion related to that of humility occurs to me: the error is a useful piece of my teaching. Since my earliest childhood, I have known that I am supposed to be in the classroom, whether in the seats or standing in front of them. There are times as an instructor that I have looked out over my students and felt the power my hard-won knowledge gives me over them. I fall too easily into condemnation of them because I approach the world from the perspective of my study; the recognition of error serves to remind me that I am still very much learning, and so I ought to have a little more compassion for those who have not struggled to do so for so long as I have and are therefore not yet where I now stand. It also serves to show my students that the process of revision is one all who will write must perform. I am not exempt from it despite my graduate degrees in English and years of experience teaching writing, so they who have yet to do such things should not think that they are themselves removed from the need to improve their work. And it allows me to model one of the many things I hope my students learn from my instruction; with luck, my doing so may at some point serve as a guide for their own labors in that regard.
Even in its deficiency, then, the dissertation has worked to better me as a scholar. I have a focus for the development of new knowledge because of it, and I can improve upon how I disseminate that knowledge. Thus, I address both of the scholar's tasks and hopefully make things better for those who will follow after me.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Sample Abstract: "Which Way I Fly Is Middle-earth; Myself Am Middle-earth"
The text below is a sample of an abstract which I take from another website I maintain. It was submitted to a conference at which it was subsequently presented.
Much of the scholarly attention which has been devoted to Tolkien since the publication of The Lord of the Rings has focused on the Northern European derivation of the characters, cultures, and terms in his works. Certainly, the author's own comments regarding his articulation of language in the works--notably Appendix F in Lord of the Rings and several of the author's notes in "Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan" in Unfinished Tales--and his own professional background substantiate such and approach. Too, the assertions of such critics as Lin Carter support the Northern sources of Tolkien's work.
While assertions of Northern European derivation of the Middle-earth corpus are valid (even the name "Middle-earth" evokes images of Odin and Thor), a number of other critics, such as John Gough, Kathleen E. Dubs, and Kathleen O'Neill, postulate that Tolkien's works operate in a more Christian than Northern Pagan mode. Such critics, while not inarticulate in their assertions, have yet to adequately explore what may be one of the strongest parallels between Christian theological writings and parts of the Middle-earth corpus; the correspondences between Milton's Paradise Lost and Tolkien's creation narratives are prominent, but largely unexplored. Conducting such an exploration would serve to more fully ground Tolkien's work in the English Christian context others have asserted as being present.
Much of the scholarly attention which has been devoted to Tolkien since the publication of The Lord of the Rings has focused on the Northern European derivation of the characters, cultures, and terms in his works. Certainly, the author's own comments regarding his articulation of language in the works--notably Appendix F in Lord of the Rings and several of the author's notes in "Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan" in Unfinished Tales--and his own professional background substantiate such and approach. Too, the assertions of such critics as Lin Carter support the Northern sources of Tolkien's work.
While assertions of Northern European derivation of the Middle-earth corpus are valid (even the name "Middle-earth" evokes images of Odin and Thor), a number of other critics, such as John Gough, Kathleen E. Dubs, and Kathleen O'Neill, postulate that Tolkien's works operate in a more Christian than Northern Pagan mode. Such critics, while not inarticulate in their assertions, have yet to adequately explore what may be one of the strongest parallels between Christian theological writings and parts of the Middle-earth corpus; the correspondences between Milton's Paradise Lost and Tolkien's creation narratives are prominent, but largely unexplored. Conducting such an exploration would serve to more fully ground Tolkien's work in the English Christian context others have asserted as being present.
Friday, January 10, 2014
A Comment Regarding Profile Writing
I do some freelance writing work (Shaw's adage about those who cannot does not always apply), and as part of that, I was asked to compose what amounts to a profile of a person who does not exist, one not unlike earlier versions of a standard assignment for my ENGL 1113 classes at Oklahoma State University. While I cannot discuss the details of the profile I wrote, I can note briefly my experience of writing it.
I was provided with a set of instructions to follow in composing the piece, instructions which were helpful in offering a framework in which to compose. Not needing to do all of the work of narrowing the topic of the piece made the writing task easier for me, although I will admit that the limitations imposed by the instructions did prevent me from pursuing one or two ideas that might have been entertaining reads. Still, knowing what dominant impression I needed to convey about the character (if there is a better word for a fictional person, I should like to know it) I was profiling afforded me a convenient focus, and that helped my writing.
Even so, I encountered some difficulty in developing the idea. I wanted to impart a certain element of tongue-in-cheek humor about the piece, a subtle nod to the fictional nature of the character profiled in the piece I was asked to write. Owing to my family background, I am aware of some pre-existing fictional constructs that would have indicated the inherent fiction of the character to those aware of those constructs but would have required others to do a bit of basic internet research to get the joke. When I tried to include them, however, I found that they did not flow organically and authentically for me; they seemed forced, instead. That I am aware of them does not mean that I have the right to them, and lacking that right made writing about them work less well than I would hope. Thus, I abandoned those references, scrapping the draft I had made of the piece that included them and starting again.
When I resumed writing, I did so with thoughts of my own sense of place in mind. My family background makes me aware of things, but my experiential background gives me the right to other things entirely, and it was those things I was able to use in the profile to make what I hope is an effective profile of the character. Where I have lived, where I have studied, where I have visited, informed the piece, offering it both the authenticity it needed to be an actual profile and the sense of humor, the nod to the fictional nature of the character and a few other erudite jokes, which I hoped to embed in the profile.
I hope that my students can take from this a confirmation of the idea that all writing--not just the profile assignment towards which this comment is most specifically directed, although certainly including it--benefits from the experiential knowledge of the author, something Lisa Shaver calls "situated ethos" in her September 2012 College English piece "'No cross, no crown': An Ethos of Presence in Margaret Prior's Walks of Usefulness." (I often refer to the article in lecture; my students will do well to read it.) It is absolutely necessary to do outside research to inform writing, particularly the kind of writing that is done at the collegiate level and for college coursework (even in creative writing classes), but it is also needful to work from lived experience; the latter lends an immediacy and authentic authority to writing that compels, and that compulsion is far from a bad thing.
I was provided with a set of instructions to follow in composing the piece, instructions which were helpful in offering a framework in which to compose. Not needing to do all of the work of narrowing the topic of the piece made the writing task easier for me, although I will admit that the limitations imposed by the instructions did prevent me from pursuing one or two ideas that might have been entertaining reads. Still, knowing what dominant impression I needed to convey about the character (if there is a better word for a fictional person, I should like to know it) I was profiling afforded me a convenient focus, and that helped my writing.
Even so, I encountered some difficulty in developing the idea. I wanted to impart a certain element of tongue-in-cheek humor about the piece, a subtle nod to the fictional nature of the character profiled in the piece I was asked to write. Owing to my family background, I am aware of some pre-existing fictional constructs that would have indicated the inherent fiction of the character to those aware of those constructs but would have required others to do a bit of basic internet research to get the joke. When I tried to include them, however, I found that they did not flow organically and authentically for me; they seemed forced, instead. That I am aware of them does not mean that I have the right to them, and lacking that right made writing about them work less well than I would hope. Thus, I abandoned those references, scrapping the draft I had made of the piece that included them and starting again.
When I resumed writing, I did so with thoughts of my own sense of place in mind. My family background makes me aware of things, but my experiential background gives me the right to other things entirely, and it was those things I was able to use in the profile to make what I hope is an effective profile of the character. Where I have lived, where I have studied, where I have visited, informed the piece, offering it both the authenticity it needed to be an actual profile and the sense of humor, the nod to the fictional nature of the character and a few other erudite jokes, which I hoped to embed in the profile.
I hope that my students can take from this a confirmation of the idea that all writing--not just the profile assignment towards which this comment is most specifically directed, although certainly including it--benefits from the experiential knowledge of the author, something Lisa Shaver calls "situated ethos" in her September 2012 College English piece "'No cross, no crown': An Ethos of Presence in Margaret Prior's Walks of Usefulness." (I often refer to the article in lecture; my students will do well to read it.) It is absolutely necessary to do outside research to inform writing, particularly the kind of writing that is done at the collegiate level and for college coursework (even in creative writing classes), but it is also needful to work from lived experience; the latter lends an immediacy and authentic authority to writing that compels, and that compulsion is far from a bad thing.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Sample Literacy Narrative: A Professor Professes _Profession_
Students, please find below a draft of an example of the kind of writing expected from you in your literacy narrative, as discussed here. When formatted for submission as a paper (which it currently is not, owing to the differences in media), it is of approximately four and one-quarter pages in length, easily what is acceptable for your own submissions.
As a scholar working in English studies, I do quite a bit of reading. Much of it is in academic journals, which I use to further the research I do and to improve the way in which I teach. The journals thus speak to both parts of my duty as a scholar, even though it is not seldom the case that the articles are somewhat dry and may not speak to my specific set of interests as a literary generalist with an emphasis in late medieval English literature and in contemporary fantasy writings of the United States and the United Kingdom. They are not always dull, however; some stick out in my mind, becoming common points of reference for me and exerting significant influence on the way in which I conduct myself as a scholar. Perhaps most notable among these for me is Mark Edmundson's contribution to the 2009 issue of Profession, "Against Readings."
In the article, Edmundson, amid some unfortunately problematic comments, asserts that those involved in teaching texts, people such as myself, "need to befriend the texts we teach" (63). They are, in his words, "the testaments of human beings who have lived and suffered in the world. They too deserve honor and respect" no less than the people who have produced them (63). This is true even of the driest piece of technical documentation; someone went to the trouble of putting together the words, and the ideas which the words represent in fleeting bits and ill-defined glimpses, offering in doing some evidence of the writer's existence even if there is no author credited. It is true of the criticism in which I and my fellow scholars of literature and other writings which may or may not deserve the title perform, examining texts to find out what they reveal about the ideas and attitudes of their writers and the contexts in which they live; in doing such things, we create our own texts that reveal much of who we are and what sort of world it is in which we live. And the texts we analyze are themselves such testimonies, as our analyses reveal and as the experiences of readers attest.
I initially read the article while I lived in New York City, likely on the subway and probably on the Q train as I traveled from the Parkside Avenue station to that at 57th Street and 7th Avenue. As is common practice for me, I read with a pencil in hand, marking up the pages as I went along; I know this because the copy I read and annotated sits on a small shelf in my office even now. Some of the marks are of things with which I take issue in the text, and that is not infrequent in my reading. But the comments near the end of the article, comments in which Edmundson encapsulates his vision, resonated within me, echoing in my thoughts ever since. They recalled to me--and still recall to me--something fundamental to my study of English languages and literatures, something rooted deeper within me than the reason I began formal study of the material; they recalled to me the joy in which I began the work and which I had too often neglected under the burdens of teaching while trying to write a dissertation and continue to present research at conferences and publish articles in other academic journals, and of living in New York City, generally.
The joy soon manifested in my writing. It is frequently the case that those who newly feel joy are eager to share it, to proselytize to others about that thing which has produced the joy, and I was very much in that mood. In conversations with my co-workers, I repeatedly brought up the article and recommended it to their reading, knowing that the school's library did not have access to the publication, but that the New York Public Library very much did and does. "Did you read the recent Profession?" I am sure I asked more than one of my fellow instructors, and I am sure I followed up with something like "Did you read Edmundon's article? You need to read it." I am sure also that I annoyed them with my insistence, much as many people are annoyed by a small child exulting in the delight at being able to do a new thing or young adults flaunting before wide audiences what they perceive as evidence of their ability to enjoy the sensuality of their bodies.
Like both child and young adult, I did leave off the open and overt rejoicing in my newfound wonder. But I did not set aside the joy entirely, instead subsuming it into my work. Aside from in some initial comments I published about the article, my more formal writing works to evidence my befriending the texts I examine. One way in which friendship is shown is in familiarity, not just in knowing well, but in being able to relax away from formality and the strict dictates of etiquette that ease interactions among those who do not know one another or whose relationships involve much of the critical--as scholarship tends to with its objects. My writing manifests both types of familiarity, the deep knowledge that is expected of intellectual, academic work in any event, and the transcendence of mannerly barriers of separation. The acknowledgements page of my dissertation contains two or three quips that would not have appeared had I not held to at least one of the things "Against Readings" says (iv). Other papers I have given have deployed litotes, a device not seldom used by older Germanic writers as a means to put across a joke, and at least two works I have in the slow process of drafting treat forms of humor as they appear in places where they are not currently recognized. In putting in and searching out jokes, finding sources and outlets for my giddy joy, I continue to display the echoing effect of "Against Readings" on me.
It is not only therein that I act upon what Edmundson asserts, showing its influence upon me. The ebullience Edmundson's comments had provoked from me manifests in my scholarly service. Part of what I have done as a scholar for some years is promote the scholarship of others through proposing special sessions at research conferences. The happiness, the attempt to befriend my material, that Edmundson asserts is vital to work in the academic humanities, appeared in my doing so as I proposed to one conference a special research session treating taruoscatology--and when the conference organizers contacted me to ask after the proposal, seeking more details, I did not hesitate to note, amid grounding the panel in publications from Princeton University's press and several major academic journals, that "Against Readings" and its thesis that evidencing a personal engagement with the materials being studied informed my putting forth the proposal. That the proposal was accepted and the session offered to much favorable comment, confirms for me that Edmundson is correct, validating my reliance upon his article's core tenet.
Further validation came in the process of my being hired to teach at a major institution in the middle of the country. While I was being interviewed for the position, one of the faculty conducting the interview referred to my curriculum vita--indeed to the very tauroscatological panel I had successfully proposed--and asked after my motivations for putting forward such an idea. The other faculty chuckled a bit at the question, and I smiled deeply before answering much as I had earlier answered the conference organizers. Once again, in addition to the more formal academic underpinnings of treating the subject matter of the panel itself, I referenced the need expressed in "Against Readings" to recall, and to demonstrate recall, the elation which brings people into the study of the academic humanities as justification for my having proposed such an unorthodox session. It evidently served me well, for I was offered the position for which I had applied; through the article and what it encouraged me to do, I was able to further my career in academe, enabling me to do more to read and write well and, hopefully, teach others to do the same.
Reading Mark Edmundson's "Against Readings" in the 2009 issue of Profession has been a major influence on my work as a scholar. It has changed the way in which I work to disseminate information and understanding of how language works. It has more importantly reminded me that I got into doing so for the joy of it, something that I had neglected to recall and that many of my colleagues in the academic humanities would do well to bring to mind. Doing so and showing that they are doing so would do much to combat the perception, too often held by people in the world, that what I and my comrades do is a dry, dull, detached thing, devoid of life and joy and not at all worth doing.
Works Cited
As a scholar working in English studies, I do quite a bit of reading. Much of it is in academic journals, which I use to further the research I do and to improve the way in which I teach. The journals thus speak to both parts of my duty as a scholar, even though it is not seldom the case that the articles are somewhat dry and may not speak to my specific set of interests as a literary generalist with an emphasis in late medieval English literature and in contemporary fantasy writings of the United States and the United Kingdom. They are not always dull, however; some stick out in my mind, becoming common points of reference for me and exerting significant influence on the way in which I conduct myself as a scholar. Perhaps most notable among these for me is Mark Edmundson's contribution to the 2009 issue of Profession, "Against Readings."
In the article, Edmundson, amid some unfortunately problematic comments, asserts that those involved in teaching texts, people such as myself, "need to befriend the texts we teach" (63). They are, in his words, "the testaments of human beings who have lived and suffered in the world. They too deserve honor and respect" no less than the people who have produced them (63). This is true even of the driest piece of technical documentation; someone went to the trouble of putting together the words, and the ideas which the words represent in fleeting bits and ill-defined glimpses, offering in doing some evidence of the writer's existence even if there is no author credited. It is true of the criticism in which I and my fellow scholars of literature and other writings which may or may not deserve the title perform, examining texts to find out what they reveal about the ideas and attitudes of their writers and the contexts in which they live; in doing such things, we create our own texts that reveal much of who we are and what sort of world it is in which we live. And the texts we analyze are themselves such testimonies, as our analyses reveal and as the experiences of readers attest.
I initially read the article while I lived in New York City, likely on the subway and probably on the Q train as I traveled from the Parkside Avenue station to that at 57th Street and 7th Avenue. As is common practice for me, I read with a pencil in hand, marking up the pages as I went along; I know this because the copy I read and annotated sits on a small shelf in my office even now. Some of the marks are of things with which I take issue in the text, and that is not infrequent in my reading. But the comments near the end of the article, comments in which Edmundson encapsulates his vision, resonated within me, echoing in my thoughts ever since. They recalled to me--and still recall to me--something fundamental to my study of English languages and literatures, something rooted deeper within me than the reason I began formal study of the material; they recalled to me the joy in which I began the work and which I had too often neglected under the burdens of teaching while trying to write a dissertation and continue to present research at conferences and publish articles in other academic journals, and of living in New York City, generally.
The joy soon manifested in my writing. It is frequently the case that those who newly feel joy are eager to share it, to proselytize to others about that thing which has produced the joy, and I was very much in that mood. In conversations with my co-workers, I repeatedly brought up the article and recommended it to their reading, knowing that the school's library did not have access to the publication, but that the New York Public Library very much did and does. "Did you read the recent Profession?" I am sure I asked more than one of my fellow instructors, and I am sure I followed up with something like "Did you read Edmundon's article? You need to read it." I am sure also that I annoyed them with my insistence, much as many people are annoyed by a small child exulting in the delight at being able to do a new thing or young adults flaunting before wide audiences what they perceive as evidence of their ability to enjoy the sensuality of their bodies.
Like both child and young adult, I did leave off the open and overt rejoicing in my newfound wonder. But I did not set aside the joy entirely, instead subsuming it into my work. Aside from in some initial comments I published about the article, my more formal writing works to evidence my befriending the texts I examine. One way in which friendship is shown is in familiarity, not just in knowing well, but in being able to relax away from formality and the strict dictates of etiquette that ease interactions among those who do not know one another or whose relationships involve much of the critical--as scholarship tends to with its objects. My writing manifests both types of familiarity, the deep knowledge that is expected of intellectual, academic work in any event, and the transcendence of mannerly barriers of separation. The acknowledgements page of my dissertation contains two or three quips that would not have appeared had I not held to at least one of the things "Against Readings" says (iv). Other papers I have given have deployed litotes, a device not seldom used by older Germanic writers as a means to put across a joke, and at least two works I have in the slow process of drafting treat forms of humor as they appear in places where they are not currently recognized. In putting in and searching out jokes, finding sources and outlets for my giddy joy, I continue to display the echoing effect of "Against Readings" on me.
It is not only therein that I act upon what Edmundson asserts, showing its influence upon me. The ebullience Edmundson's comments had provoked from me manifests in my scholarly service. Part of what I have done as a scholar for some years is promote the scholarship of others through proposing special sessions at research conferences. The happiness, the attempt to befriend my material, that Edmundson asserts is vital to work in the academic humanities, appeared in my doing so as I proposed to one conference a special research session treating taruoscatology--and when the conference organizers contacted me to ask after the proposal, seeking more details, I did not hesitate to note, amid grounding the panel in publications from Princeton University's press and several major academic journals, that "Against Readings" and its thesis that evidencing a personal engagement with the materials being studied informed my putting forth the proposal. That the proposal was accepted and the session offered to much favorable comment, confirms for me that Edmundson is correct, validating my reliance upon his article's core tenet.
Further validation came in the process of my being hired to teach at a major institution in the middle of the country. While I was being interviewed for the position, one of the faculty conducting the interview referred to my curriculum vita--indeed to the very tauroscatological panel I had successfully proposed--and asked after my motivations for putting forward such an idea. The other faculty chuckled a bit at the question, and I smiled deeply before answering much as I had earlier answered the conference organizers. Once again, in addition to the more formal academic underpinnings of treating the subject matter of the panel itself, I referenced the need expressed in "Against Readings" to recall, and to demonstrate recall, the elation which brings people into the study of the academic humanities as justification for my having proposed such an unorthodox session. It evidently served me well, for I was offered the position for which I had applied; through the article and what it encouraged me to do, I was able to further my career in academe, enabling me to do more to read and write well and, hopefully, teach others to do the same.
Reading Mark Edmundson's "Against Readings" in the 2009 issue of Profession has been a major influence on my work as a scholar. It has changed the way in which I work to disseminate information and understanding of how language works. It has more importantly reminded me that I got into doing so for the joy of it, something that I had neglected to recall and that many of my colleagues in the academic humanities would do well to bring to mind. Doing so and showing that they are doing so would do much to combat the perception, too often held by people in the world, that what I and my comrades do is a dry, dull, detached thing, devoid of life and joy and not at all worth doing.
Works Cited
- Edmundson, Mark. "Against Readings." Profession (2009): 56-65. Print.
- Elliott, Geoffrey. The Establishment of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur as the Standard Text of English-Language Arthurian Legend. Diss. U. of Louisiana at Lafayette. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2012. PDF file.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Sample Conference-Length Paper
Students, please find below an example of the kind of paper discussed in detail here. It derives from the position paper assigned earlier in the Summer 2013 term at TCI. Accordingly, much of the material in this piece will be familiar to those who have read the previous.
Please note that, as with other examples posted to this blog, the formatting is medium-specific. The content and pattern are offered as models; the formatting needs to conform to the class standards expressed as "General Paper Formatting Instructions 20130211" here. When it is formatted appropriately for submission as a paper, it comes out to some six and a half pages, on the shorter end of acceptable length for the assignment.
My study of Japanese martial arts began when I was in sixth grade. On a field trip, I had been beaten fairly badly by classmates, and my family and I determined that I would thereafter have the means to defend myself from assault. A friend of the family had made a long study of Korean taekwondo and Japanese classical jiujutsu and offered to take me on as a student in the latter discipline. In the years since, I have studied Kodokan judo and Aikikai aikido, finding the latter particularly enjoyable. In no small part, this is because of the difference I have observed among students of jiujutsu, judo, and aikido. The first seek to be able to render others unable to attack again, the second seek victory in competitions. Students of Aikikai aikido, however, tend to pursue something different. The art attracts students who wish to enact a just and ethical peace in the world.
There is, admittedly, something of a disjunction in the idea of a martial art attracting those who seek peace. Popular media is replete with depictions--and popular ones--of martial artists in various traditions who directly and explicitly seek to wreak harm on others. The popularity of Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts competitions offers one set of examples of those who are engaged in the martial arts not for the pursuit of peace, but for its opposite--as well as a financial payout, indicating that the fighting is done from a desire for money long recognized as the root of evil and therefore something far removed from justice and ethics. In addition, the description of Aikikai aikido as a martial art belies the idea that its practitioners strive for peace. The word martial means warlike, and war is regarded as the antithesis of peace. For a person to practice a martial art, then, necessarily means that the person is preparing for war, which would seem to be far removed from the pursuit of any peace, ethical and just or otherwise.
The seeming, however, is only a seeming and not the truth of the matter. One of the most widely recognized and authoritative commentaries on armed combat, written by Sunzi (more commonly known as Sun Tzu), remarks that "supreme excellence comes from breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" (97; ch. 3, sec. 2), meaning that it is better to win without fighting than to win through fighting, a remarkable position for a manual of war to take. It adds to the assertion that the object of war is "victory, not lengthy campaigns" (97; ch. 2, sec. 19), indicating that fighting is to be minimized, which is hardly the most warmongering of comments. Indeed, it suggests that purpose of war is to return to peace with all haste--and Sun Tzu's comments also insist that high standards of conduct must be maintained. For example, the text notes that "captured soldiers should be treated kindly and kept" (97; ch. 2, sec. 17), "The consummate leader [of warriors] cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline" (99; ch. 4, sec. 16), and "soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity" (107; ch. 9, sec. 43). Each bespeaks restraint, control, and compassion--and all three are conducive to the correct and appropriate treatment of others in all circumstances, necessitating the regard for them as people. Clearly, then, the practice of war is not incommensurate with the establishment of peace, and an ethical and just peace. Its study, as by those who practice martial arts such as Aikikai aikido, cannot be thusly incommensurate, either.
Part of the Aikikai aikido students' work toward an ethically just peace derives from the fact that aikido is a relatively recently developed Japanese martial art. The English-language website of the Aikikai Foundation, which is hosted at the world headquarters of organized study of aikido, notes that it was "created during the 1920s by Morihei Ueshiba" and was "Officially recognized by the Japanese government in 1940." The grandson of Morihei Ueshiba, Moriteru Ueshiba, is the doshu or head of the art and of the Aikikai Foundation, as its website notes, so it is only in its third generation, making it quite young. The United States Aikido Federation, the major governing body of aikido study in the United States, reinforces the idea of aikido's relative newness, noting on its website that the first aikido dojo was established in 1927. The time of its creation coincides with a series of world events that point up the problems of ethics and justice attendant upon attempts to dominate groups of people, those leading up to and at the beginning of the Second World War. During that time, several nations were engaged in the systematic subjugation and destruction of peoples based upon perceived ethnic and racial differences, actions far from respectful of individual dignity and so neither ethical nor just. Those problems were doubtlessly in the mind of the founder of aikido, commonly called O-Sensei, as he set up his school, and they therefore almost certainly exerted influence on his teachings. As such, a desire for peace, which cannot exist save in the presence of ethical justice, is tacitly embedded in Aikikai aikido, and so it is those who seek peace who are most likely to study the art.
Moreover, the enactment of an ethical and just peace is an explicit goal of Aikikai aikido. Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere is a standard textbook on aikido practice, and one written by two early United States students of Aikikai aikido (9). The authors, Westbrook and Ratti, speak explicitly to the "ethical imperatives" of the art (33). They note that the "ultimate in ethical self-defense," and the "goal of all aikido self-defense arts," is in neutralizing an unprovoked attack in such a way that the attacker is left alive and without serious injury (34). The textbook is an influential one, reaching even outside of Aikikai aikido, and it overtly links the pursuit of peace--the neutralization of aggression--with ethical concern for others and an immediate, personal justice--the just and appropriate defense of self against attack (20). Consequently, it embeds in much study of aikido an aspiration for an ethically just peace, and those who continue to study the art do so in recognition thereof.
Further, the Aikikai Foundation remarks that because "contemporary values stress respect for human life, Aikido is a highly relevant form of the Japanese martial arts." This necessarily implies that aikido is respectful of persons, which concern is inherent both to ethics and to justice. More explicitly, the US Aikido Federation notes "Aikido strives for the ultimate goal of peaceful resolution rather than defeat," that its performance works "to subdue and neutralize attackers without serious injury," done "without belittling others, without the intention of harm or fear of injury," but under a "premise of mutual respect and caring." In emphasizing resolution rather than victory is a direct call for peace and tranquility. In the goal of not inflicting serious injury is a recognition of the right even the errant have to the integrity of their own bodies, which is a remarkably high ethical standard with which to treat an attacker. Similarly, in working not only to respect the other participant in the act of aikido (both by refusing to offer insult and to appreciate the potential of the other to enact harm), but to work to the betterment of that other--for what else is caring?--there is a degree of compassion that underlies the highest principles of just conduct. Each is a fundamental goal of the art, and so each is presented as something towards which students of aikido are expected to strive from their earliest days on the mats of the dojo floor. They are not easy things towards which to work, and so those who practice the art are necessarily those who have a strong desire to enact a just and ethical peace.
Without such a desire, it is not likely that the student will remain dedicated to the art. Yet Aikikai aikido tends to attract people who remain in study for decades. A number of those at my own dojo have been on the mats for thirty years and more. They would not have done so were there not something peculiar to Aikikai aikido to attract them and retain their interest through injury and child-rearing, relocation and economic worry. The physical techniques of Aikikai aikido have antecedents and direct parallels in other martial arts (Westbrook and Ratti 30-31), and many of those arts are far more widely studied and accessible. The uniqueness of Aikikai aikido is in its ethical imperatives, and so it must be in them that the students of the art find what they need to sustain themselves.
It is admittedly true that the initial intention of a thing does not always continue to guide it. Jude Roberts, for example, argues at length that law is easily turned to ends for which it was never intended--and which can, in fact, be antithetical to the desires of those who frame the laws. If so revered and solemn a thing as a nation's law can be directed away from its original intent, many other things may, as well, and it follows that a martial art may be similarly shaded away from its first thrust. In fact, there are many sub-schools which have broken away from their origins. Students of Aikikai aikido, however, overwhelmingly follow the ethical path established by O-Sensei. My own study of the art has been influenced by senior practitioners who have told me that those on the mats, practicing the techniques of aikido, are all brothers and sisters, united almost as family in the pursuit of what the art can yield. Although members of a family might come to strife, the family itself ultimately seeks harmony--and it is in harmony with the world that just and ethical peace is attained.
In addition, one of the foremost instructors of aikido in the world, Yoshimitsu Yamada, remarks on the New York Aikikai's website that "one of [the] goals in studying aikido to emulate as much as possible [O-Sensei's] admirable characteristics," among which are compassion and the elimination of selfishness. Both regard for others and a willingness to act in the interests of others rather than the self are often held to be primary ideas of both ethics and justice, and enacting them is likely to produce an active tranquility that can easily be called "peace." Yamada continues to be in a position to influence thousands of students, both directly through his own worldwide teaching (the New York Aikikai's website reports his seminar schedule, which takes him across the Americas and Eurasia) and through his own students having opened dojo of their own (as noted in biographies of the teaching staff of the New York Aikikai). Accordingly, his views guide much of the practice of aikido, and since his views explicitly speak to adherence to O-Sensei's vision, that initial vision still guides aikido. Aikido, at least in its main thrust of the Aikikai style, therefore remains tied to the desire for a just and ethical peace, in its statements and in its students.
Even the techniques of Aikikai aikido conduce to the goal of peaceful resolution of conflict and the minimization of injury when conflict cannot be avoided. Many of the techniques of aikido open with a motion intended to remove the attacker form the line of attack, and the opening motion has repeatedly emphasized in classes I have taken as being among the most important parts of successful aikido. Techniques begin in avoidance, rather than confrontation. They continue, as my teachers have repeatedly commented, in blending with the motions of the attacker or attackers. Aikido techniques integrate with the attacks to which they respond, uniting the attacker and the attacked in their performance and signaling the desire of the practitioner to be in accord with the attacker rather than in opposition. They also often result in joint locks applied well away from the major organs of the body; a series of wrist-locks, in fact, are typical of aikido techniques. The locks do carry the potential for grievous harm, yes, but inflicting that harm requires much effort, and the bodies of most people will not allow them to continue to attack once the specific pressures Aikikai aikido exerts on wrists and other joints are brought to bear; there is rarely any need for injury when aikido is successfully performed. In the individual iteration of techniques, then, Aikikai aikido promotes peace through building connections among people, and it signals that the peace is ethically just through allowing for effective defense while minimizing the injuries inflicted upon others.
It is not the case that, in its techniques, Aikikai aikido is more or less effective than other Japanese martial arts--or other traditions of martial arts. The fact that the traditions have been transmitted for decades and centuries speaks to their effectiveness as techniques, as means to manipulate the human body and equipment to end individual physical conflicts. The chief difference is in the intention behind the performance of the techniques. Classical jiujutsu seeks to render the opponent incapable of further attack. Judo seeks to render the opponent defeated, usually in a supine position in a prescribed tournament setting. Aikikai aikido seeks to make the opponent not an opponent, to neutralize aggression in the interest of permitting people to find and maintain their best selves. The enactment by more people of their best selves will lead to the improvement of the world in which they live, an improvement which is promoted through a peace founded on ethical concern for others and a justice born of compassion. Aikikai aikido serves that end, and its study by those who seek that end is well worth increasing, to the benefit of all.
Works Cited
~"About Aikido." United States Aikido Federation. United States Aikido Federation, 2013. Web. 17 June 2013.
~Aikikai Foundation. Aikikai Foundation, 2005. Web. 29 July 2013.
~New York Aikikai. New York Aikikai, 2009. Web. 29 July 2013.
~Roberts, Jude. "'Circumcision: everyone's talking about it': Legislation, Social Pressure, and the Body." Journal of Gender Studies 20.4 (December 2011): 347-58. EBSCOhost. Web. 5 June 2013.
~Sunzi [Sun Tzu]. Sun-tzu on the Art of War: The Oldest Military Treatise in the World. Trans. Lionel Giles. Ed. Bob Sutton. EBSCOhost. Web. 29 July 2013.
~Westbrook, A., and O. Ratti. Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere. Illus. O. Ratti. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 2006. Print.
Please note that, as with other examples posted to this blog, the formatting is medium-specific. The content and pattern are offered as models; the formatting needs to conform to the class standards expressed as "General Paper Formatting Instructions 20130211" here. When it is formatted appropriately for submission as a paper, it comes out to some six and a half pages, on the shorter end of acceptable length for the assignment.
My study of Japanese martial arts began when I was in sixth grade. On a field trip, I had been beaten fairly badly by classmates, and my family and I determined that I would thereafter have the means to defend myself from assault. A friend of the family had made a long study of Korean taekwondo and Japanese classical jiujutsu and offered to take me on as a student in the latter discipline. In the years since, I have studied Kodokan judo and Aikikai aikido, finding the latter particularly enjoyable. In no small part, this is because of the difference I have observed among students of jiujutsu, judo, and aikido. The first seek to be able to render others unable to attack again, the second seek victory in competitions. Students of Aikikai aikido, however, tend to pursue something different. The art attracts students who wish to enact a just and ethical peace in the world.
There is, admittedly, something of a disjunction in the idea of a martial art attracting those who seek peace. Popular media is replete with depictions--and popular ones--of martial artists in various traditions who directly and explicitly seek to wreak harm on others. The popularity of Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts competitions offers one set of examples of those who are engaged in the martial arts not for the pursuit of peace, but for its opposite--as well as a financial payout, indicating that the fighting is done from a desire for money long recognized as the root of evil and therefore something far removed from justice and ethics. In addition, the description of Aikikai aikido as a martial art belies the idea that its practitioners strive for peace. The word martial means warlike, and war is regarded as the antithesis of peace. For a person to practice a martial art, then, necessarily means that the person is preparing for war, which would seem to be far removed from the pursuit of any peace, ethical and just or otherwise.
The seeming, however, is only a seeming and not the truth of the matter. One of the most widely recognized and authoritative commentaries on armed combat, written by Sunzi (more commonly known as Sun Tzu), remarks that "supreme excellence comes from breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" (97; ch. 3, sec. 2), meaning that it is better to win without fighting than to win through fighting, a remarkable position for a manual of war to take. It adds to the assertion that the object of war is "victory, not lengthy campaigns" (97; ch. 2, sec. 19), indicating that fighting is to be minimized, which is hardly the most warmongering of comments. Indeed, it suggests that purpose of war is to return to peace with all haste--and Sun Tzu's comments also insist that high standards of conduct must be maintained. For example, the text notes that "captured soldiers should be treated kindly and kept" (97; ch. 2, sec. 17), "The consummate leader [of warriors] cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline" (99; ch. 4, sec. 16), and "soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity" (107; ch. 9, sec. 43). Each bespeaks restraint, control, and compassion--and all three are conducive to the correct and appropriate treatment of others in all circumstances, necessitating the regard for them as people. Clearly, then, the practice of war is not incommensurate with the establishment of peace, and an ethical and just peace. Its study, as by those who practice martial arts such as Aikikai aikido, cannot be thusly incommensurate, either.
Part of the Aikikai aikido students' work toward an ethically just peace derives from the fact that aikido is a relatively recently developed Japanese martial art. The English-language website of the Aikikai Foundation, which is hosted at the world headquarters of organized study of aikido, notes that it was "created during the 1920s by Morihei Ueshiba" and was "Officially recognized by the Japanese government in 1940." The grandson of Morihei Ueshiba, Moriteru Ueshiba, is the doshu or head of the art and of the Aikikai Foundation, as its website notes, so it is only in its third generation, making it quite young. The United States Aikido Federation, the major governing body of aikido study in the United States, reinforces the idea of aikido's relative newness, noting on its website that the first aikido dojo was established in 1927. The time of its creation coincides with a series of world events that point up the problems of ethics and justice attendant upon attempts to dominate groups of people, those leading up to and at the beginning of the Second World War. During that time, several nations were engaged in the systematic subjugation and destruction of peoples based upon perceived ethnic and racial differences, actions far from respectful of individual dignity and so neither ethical nor just. Those problems were doubtlessly in the mind of the founder of aikido, commonly called O-Sensei, as he set up his school, and they therefore almost certainly exerted influence on his teachings. As such, a desire for peace, which cannot exist save in the presence of ethical justice, is tacitly embedded in Aikikai aikido, and so it is those who seek peace who are most likely to study the art.
Moreover, the enactment of an ethical and just peace is an explicit goal of Aikikai aikido. Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere is a standard textbook on aikido practice, and one written by two early United States students of Aikikai aikido (9). The authors, Westbrook and Ratti, speak explicitly to the "ethical imperatives" of the art (33). They note that the "ultimate in ethical self-defense," and the "goal of all aikido self-defense arts," is in neutralizing an unprovoked attack in such a way that the attacker is left alive and without serious injury (34). The textbook is an influential one, reaching even outside of Aikikai aikido, and it overtly links the pursuit of peace--the neutralization of aggression--with ethical concern for others and an immediate, personal justice--the just and appropriate defense of self against attack (20). Consequently, it embeds in much study of aikido an aspiration for an ethically just peace, and those who continue to study the art do so in recognition thereof.
Further, the Aikikai Foundation remarks that because "contemporary values stress respect for human life, Aikido is a highly relevant form of the Japanese martial arts." This necessarily implies that aikido is respectful of persons, which concern is inherent both to ethics and to justice. More explicitly, the US Aikido Federation notes "Aikido strives for the ultimate goal of peaceful resolution rather than defeat," that its performance works "to subdue and neutralize attackers without serious injury," done "without belittling others, without the intention of harm or fear of injury," but under a "premise of mutual respect and caring." In emphasizing resolution rather than victory is a direct call for peace and tranquility. In the goal of not inflicting serious injury is a recognition of the right even the errant have to the integrity of their own bodies, which is a remarkably high ethical standard with which to treat an attacker. Similarly, in working not only to respect the other participant in the act of aikido (both by refusing to offer insult and to appreciate the potential of the other to enact harm), but to work to the betterment of that other--for what else is caring?--there is a degree of compassion that underlies the highest principles of just conduct. Each is a fundamental goal of the art, and so each is presented as something towards which students of aikido are expected to strive from their earliest days on the mats of the dojo floor. They are not easy things towards which to work, and so those who practice the art are necessarily those who have a strong desire to enact a just and ethical peace.
Without such a desire, it is not likely that the student will remain dedicated to the art. Yet Aikikai aikido tends to attract people who remain in study for decades. A number of those at my own dojo have been on the mats for thirty years and more. They would not have done so were there not something peculiar to Aikikai aikido to attract them and retain their interest through injury and child-rearing, relocation and economic worry. The physical techniques of Aikikai aikido have antecedents and direct parallels in other martial arts (Westbrook and Ratti 30-31), and many of those arts are far more widely studied and accessible. The uniqueness of Aikikai aikido is in its ethical imperatives, and so it must be in them that the students of the art find what they need to sustain themselves.
It is admittedly true that the initial intention of a thing does not always continue to guide it. Jude Roberts, for example, argues at length that law is easily turned to ends for which it was never intended--and which can, in fact, be antithetical to the desires of those who frame the laws. If so revered and solemn a thing as a nation's law can be directed away from its original intent, many other things may, as well, and it follows that a martial art may be similarly shaded away from its first thrust. In fact, there are many sub-schools which have broken away from their origins. Students of Aikikai aikido, however, overwhelmingly follow the ethical path established by O-Sensei. My own study of the art has been influenced by senior practitioners who have told me that those on the mats, practicing the techniques of aikido, are all brothers and sisters, united almost as family in the pursuit of what the art can yield. Although members of a family might come to strife, the family itself ultimately seeks harmony--and it is in harmony with the world that just and ethical peace is attained.
In addition, one of the foremost instructors of aikido in the world, Yoshimitsu Yamada, remarks on the New York Aikikai's website that "one of [the] goals in studying aikido to emulate as much as possible [O-Sensei's] admirable characteristics," among which are compassion and the elimination of selfishness. Both regard for others and a willingness to act in the interests of others rather than the self are often held to be primary ideas of both ethics and justice, and enacting them is likely to produce an active tranquility that can easily be called "peace." Yamada continues to be in a position to influence thousands of students, both directly through his own worldwide teaching (the New York Aikikai's website reports his seminar schedule, which takes him across the Americas and Eurasia) and through his own students having opened dojo of their own (as noted in biographies of the teaching staff of the New York Aikikai). Accordingly, his views guide much of the practice of aikido, and since his views explicitly speak to adherence to O-Sensei's vision, that initial vision still guides aikido. Aikido, at least in its main thrust of the Aikikai style, therefore remains tied to the desire for a just and ethical peace, in its statements and in its students.
Even the techniques of Aikikai aikido conduce to the goal of peaceful resolution of conflict and the minimization of injury when conflict cannot be avoided. Many of the techniques of aikido open with a motion intended to remove the attacker form the line of attack, and the opening motion has repeatedly emphasized in classes I have taken as being among the most important parts of successful aikido. Techniques begin in avoidance, rather than confrontation. They continue, as my teachers have repeatedly commented, in blending with the motions of the attacker or attackers. Aikido techniques integrate with the attacks to which they respond, uniting the attacker and the attacked in their performance and signaling the desire of the practitioner to be in accord with the attacker rather than in opposition. They also often result in joint locks applied well away from the major organs of the body; a series of wrist-locks, in fact, are typical of aikido techniques. The locks do carry the potential for grievous harm, yes, but inflicting that harm requires much effort, and the bodies of most people will not allow them to continue to attack once the specific pressures Aikikai aikido exerts on wrists and other joints are brought to bear; there is rarely any need for injury when aikido is successfully performed. In the individual iteration of techniques, then, Aikikai aikido promotes peace through building connections among people, and it signals that the peace is ethically just through allowing for effective defense while minimizing the injuries inflicted upon others.
It is not the case that, in its techniques, Aikikai aikido is more or less effective than other Japanese martial arts--or other traditions of martial arts. The fact that the traditions have been transmitted for decades and centuries speaks to their effectiveness as techniques, as means to manipulate the human body and equipment to end individual physical conflicts. The chief difference is in the intention behind the performance of the techniques. Classical jiujutsu seeks to render the opponent incapable of further attack. Judo seeks to render the opponent defeated, usually in a supine position in a prescribed tournament setting. Aikikai aikido seeks to make the opponent not an opponent, to neutralize aggression in the interest of permitting people to find and maintain their best selves. The enactment by more people of their best selves will lead to the improvement of the world in which they live, an improvement which is promoted through a peace founded on ethical concern for others and a justice born of compassion. Aikikai aikido serves that end, and its study by those who seek that end is well worth increasing, to the benefit of all.
Works Cited
~"About Aikido." United States Aikido Federation. United States Aikido Federation, 2013. Web. 17 June 2013.
~Aikikai Foundation. Aikikai Foundation, 2005. Web. 29 July 2013.
~New York Aikikai. New York Aikikai, 2009. Web. 29 July 2013.
~Roberts, Jude. "'Circumcision: everyone's talking about it': Legislation, Social Pressure, and the Body." Journal of Gender Studies 20.4 (December 2011): 347-58. EBSCOhost. Web. 5 June 2013.
~Sunzi [Sun Tzu]. Sun-tzu on the Art of War: The Oldest Military Treatise in the World. Trans. Lionel Giles. Ed. Bob Sutton. EBSCOhost. Web. 29 July 2013.
~Westbrook, A., and O. Ratti. Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere. Illus. O. Ratti. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 2006. Print.
Sample Conference-length Paper: Searching the Hoard in _Words like Coins_
Students, please find below a sample of the kind of conference-length paper discussed here. It derives from the paper proposal assigned earlier in the Summer 2013 term at TCI, working to meet the proposed goals of the project outlined therein. Accordingly, some of the material in this piece will be familiar to those who have read the previous.
Please note that, as with other examples posted to this blog, the formatting is medium-specific. The content and pattern are offered as models; the formatting needs to conform to the class standards expressed as "General Paper Formatting Instructions 20130211" here. When it is formatted appropriately for submission as a paper, it comes out to some six and a half pages, on the shorter end of acceptable length for the assignment.
Note also that it does not use all of the sources suggested as potentially viable in the annotated bibliography composed in support of the research project. It is frequently the case that not all the information available finds its way into the text--but it is far better to have the information available than not.
An increasing amount of scholarly attention is being paid to fantasy literature, which may be defined as that literature relying upon the enactment of personal will in defiance of the normal constraints of reality, typically through ritual (Elliott, "Manifestations" 2-4). The most notable work of fantasy literature is Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which is abundant on bookstore shelves and enjoyed great commercial success and broad cultural attention in movie form. Tolkien is far from the only author in the genre, however, and although there are many writers of poor quality who publish fantasy, many others produce works that bear literary critique and analysis no less than the works traditionally valued as part of the literary canon.
One such author is Robin Hobb, whose works are beginning to attract attention by literary scholars. Much of her fantasy writing depicts a milieu containing the Six Duchies, a fictive kingdom very much in the Tolkienan tradition. In addition to the novels of the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, which comprise the bulk of the Six Duchies material, she has set several short stories and other works in that fictional nation. One of them, the novella Words like Coins, serves as a commentary on the craft of writing, noting the perils in sloppiness of language.
The importance of words in the text is signaled in the title itself. The simile links words--utterances both verbal in encoded in visual symbols--to currency. Words are thereby equated with money, linked with the primary means of access to material sustenance both within the text and for the early twenty-first century readers of that text. Accordingly, they are established from the outset as things to be valued, and it follows that if words are to be valued, they are to be treated with care. They are to be prized, not treated sloppily, an attitude reflecting that expressed by Strunk and White in their seminal work The Elements of Style. White notes in his introduction to the text that it is in its origin a "summation of the case for cleanness, accuracy, and brevity" in writing (xiii), which tends toward precision and away from sloppiness. Too, Strunk and White emphasize clarity, explicitly bidding writers to "Be clear" and remarking both that "clarity can only be a virtue" and that "Muddiness [the opposite of clarity] is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a destroyer of life, of hope" (79). While it may be couched in hyperbole, the basic idea is one valued by many writers. Clarity, the manifestation of precision in the encapsulation of ideas by language, is desirable, and its lack is perilous to writing. In constructing the simile of her novella's title, Hobb indicates that the text will address the attitude Strunk and White express, both that precision is a boon and its lack a bane.
The attitude is carried on throughout the text. Lack of precision in the use of language is repeatedly presented badly in the novella. An early example comes in an exchange between the protagonist, Mirrifen, and a subordinate character, Jami. The latter, a young, pregnant woman, has asked Mirrifen for a particular favor relating to Mirrifen's training as a hedge-witch. In Hobb's Six Duchies, hedge-witches are makers of charms and other minor magical items that produce specific effects; Mirrifen had been apprenticed to a drunkard of a hedge-witch, from whom she was able to learn "how much water to mix with her rum" and "six different places to hide from her when she was drunk" rather than the mysteries of art that were supposed to have become hers. She also learned a cautionary tale regarding the kind of request Jami makes of her, a sleep charm, and she relates it to Jami; a hedge-witch sought to make a sleep charm for herself, succeeding and consequently sleeping so long and so deeply that she died of starvation before being able to wake again. Jami, who had asked for the charm as a sleep aid in her late pregnancy, reacts badly to the story, shuddering and calling it "'A pleasant tale to sleep on!'" The reaction to the story and the story itself attest to the negative effects attendant on a lack of consideration for usage. Jami's reaction suggests an unintended consequence of Mirrifen's story; told initially to explain refusal to comply, the story instead provokes a fear reaction that inhibits the sleep Jami had sought. The story itself implies that the lack of concern for the outcomes of language--and the system of symbols Hobb's hedge-witches deploy in their charms is very much a language, as Mirrifen repeatedly notes reading specific ideograms in them--can have potentially fatal results. Both therefore serve as an indictment of sloppy usage.
Other chastisements of sloppy language are more explicit. At one point in the novella, Mirrifen falls asleep when she is supposed to be guarding a well. When asked by a pecksie--a fairy-like creature repeatedly noted, if rarely depicted, in Hobb's Six Duchies--what she was doing, Mirrifen replies that she is guarding, prompting the pecksie to exclaim "with disdain. 'You not guard. You sleep!'" The lie, an imprecision, is reproved, marking such statements as undesirable. It is not the only erroneous use the pecksie chastises. For the pecksie had been the beneficiary of an attempt by Mirrifen to craft a charm against fever--one that was in need of correction, as the pecksie notes with seeming aspersion to Mirrifen, stating that it "Worked. Just not as good as it could. Lucky for me, it not do harm" [sic]. Also, as the conversation continues, the pecksie adds (in an authorial reference back to the novella's title) "Words are like coins. To spend carefully, as they are needed only. Not to scatter." A later comment in the conversation between Mirrifen and the pecksie finds the latter ominously asserting that "Careless words are dangerous. To all." Here, again, Hobb echoes Strunk and White, who offer writers such advice as "Do not overwrite" (72), "Do not overstate" (73), and "Avoid the use of qualifiers" (73). When, later, Mirrifen complains of pecksie actions taken in response to her own stated desires, the pecksie replies "You spent the words, and this is what they bought you" returning to the currency comparison and reasserting the peril of poor usage by connecting it to results not wanted or intended. Linguistic precision and frugality are repeatedly emphasized by the pecksie, and their lack repudiated. The fact of the repetition, occurring fairly often in a relatively short text, foregrounds in the text of Hobb's novella the idea that sloppiness in language is to be repudiated, suggesting that it is a key discourse of the text.
Hobb's pecksies themselves are much concerned with the effects of language, and therefore with its exactitude. In discussions with Jami, who fears and loathes the pecksies for much of the novella, Mirrifen learns the power that words have over the pecksies. Jami notes that pecksies become bound to those from whom they accept assistance, becoming obliged to perform the actions they are bidden by those people. Jami reinforces the idea, stating explicitly that "Words bind pecksies," an idea that does much to explain the frequency with which the pecksie known to Mirrifen berates those who are sloppy in their usage; as happens in the novella--for Mirrifen had aided the pecksie with whom she speaks before speaking with Jami about pecksies--sloppy wording results in sloppy binding. While any binding of a sentient being is likely to be objectionable, an inadvertent and careless one is particularly loathsome in its display of lack of concern for the rights of other thinking beings. And Jami, continuing her conversation with Mirrifen, comments on the need to target commands issued to bound pecksies--and on the potential effects of not targeting them:
The primary textual example through which Hobb imparts the notion that inattention to the specifics of language use is a danger is in the birth of Jami's child. That the danger proceeds from inattention to the details of usage is made obvious well in advance of the peril presenting itself; at Jami's request, Mirrifen attempts to make a charm to keep the pecksies out of the room in which Jami is to give birth. As she does so, however, she realizes the limits of her understanding, but arrogantly pushes on anyway. Hobb writes of Mirrifen that "She didn't know the charm symbol for 'pecksie.' No matter. She knew 'person' and 'small' and the warding words that prevented creatures from passing through. Those would work well enough." Mirrifen recognizes her incapacity, her lack of specific understanding, yet proceeds ahead with magic she knows from experience to be potentially dangerous, as her early comments about the sleep-charm-slain hedge-witch indicate. She also knows that, in matters involving pecksies, specificity of language is of overriding importance; both Jami and the pecksie bound to Mirrifen repeatedly emphasize the point. That Mirrifen disregards both concerns, and fairly blithely, does much to indicate that danger resulting from sloppy language is forthcoming.
That danger manifests in short order. Birth is always perilous in a milieu such as that of the Six Duchies. As remarked upon earlier, Hobb's fantasy kingdom is one very much in the Tolkienan tradition, which means that it is "loosely evocative of romanticized notions of Continental Europe in the High Middle Ages" (Elliott, "Divergent" 1). The medieval period was hardly the height of obstetric practice, and even in glossed-over, sanitized versions of such narratives, mothers frequently die in childbirth--as do their children. "Grittier" iterations of the Tolkienan tradition--such as the main line of Hobb's Six Duchies narratives--imply even more risk of death in childbirth. Mirrifen is well aware of the already-existing potential risk; she "longed for the birth [of Jami's child] as much as she dreaded it....the closest midwife was a half-day's walk away," suggesting the danger in the event and the lack of access to convenient help for it. The inherent risks of childbirth contribute to the sense of foreboding that Mirrifen's overconfidence fosters, making it no surprise that Jami's accouchement goes as it does.
How it goes is poorly, and all as a result of Mirrifen's lack of specificity. Jami's delivery is long and arduous; it lasts from near dawn well into the night, wracking Jami's body without ceasing for hours on end without producing the child. Mirrifen realizes that the delivery has gone dangerously, fatally wrong, leaving Jami weakened almost to the point of death by exhaustion, noting at length that "Jamie [sic] would die, painfully, the child dying within her." The pecksies eventually are able to intervene, and their own skills leave Mirrifen deep in slumber--and Jami and her child alive and well. The pecksie bound to Mirrifen notes that it was Mirrifen's charm that had held the baby--a "small person"--inside of Jami before the pecksies could intervene, and Mirrifen realizes that it was through her lack of specificity in language that the near-fatality of the delivery came to be. It is through sloppy usage that Jami's child is imperiled, and as a direct result of it, Jami is herself imperiled. Two lives are risked through an arrogant misuse of systems of symbols, making such misuse, such inattention to the details of language, something Hobb uses the novella to argue is very much to be avoided.
For a writer to be concerned with language is to be expected; language is the means through which writers seek to sustain themselves, so that words are very much like coins for them. That Hobb's novella is preoccupied with pointing out the perils in poor use of language, then, is accordant with her identity as a writer. Even for those who do not identify as writers, however, the message that exactitude in language is desirable is worth noting. Those who have had to handle legally binding documents such as contracts and the texts of laws can easily be made aware of what dangers lurk in unclear wording and phrasing. Those who have been given directions know that precision in them is vitally important. And for all people, attention to the details of words is of a piece with attention to the details of all things. In such attention is mastery, and in its lack, a path to potential ruin.
Works Cited
~Elliott, Geoffrey B. "A Divergent Medievalism in Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies." 2013. TS.
~---."Manifestations of English Arthurian Legend in the Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies of Robin Hobb." MA thesis. U of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2007. Print.
~Hobb, Robin. Words like Coins. Burton, MI: Subterranean P, 2012. E-book.
~Strunk, William, Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Pearson, 2009. Print.
Please note that, as with other examples posted to this blog, the formatting is medium-specific. The content and pattern are offered as models; the formatting needs to conform to the class standards expressed as "General Paper Formatting Instructions 20130211" here. When it is formatted appropriately for submission as a paper, it comes out to some six and a half pages, on the shorter end of acceptable length for the assignment.
Note also that it does not use all of the sources suggested as potentially viable in the annotated bibliography composed in support of the research project. It is frequently the case that not all the information available finds its way into the text--but it is far better to have the information available than not.
An increasing amount of scholarly attention is being paid to fantasy literature, which may be defined as that literature relying upon the enactment of personal will in defiance of the normal constraints of reality, typically through ritual (Elliott, "Manifestations" 2-4). The most notable work of fantasy literature is Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which is abundant on bookstore shelves and enjoyed great commercial success and broad cultural attention in movie form. Tolkien is far from the only author in the genre, however, and although there are many writers of poor quality who publish fantasy, many others produce works that bear literary critique and analysis no less than the works traditionally valued as part of the literary canon.
One such author is Robin Hobb, whose works are beginning to attract attention by literary scholars. Much of her fantasy writing depicts a milieu containing the Six Duchies, a fictive kingdom very much in the Tolkienan tradition. In addition to the novels of the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, which comprise the bulk of the Six Duchies material, she has set several short stories and other works in that fictional nation. One of them, the novella Words like Coins, serves as a commentary on the craft of writing, noting the perils in sloppiness of language.
The importance of words in the text is signaled in the title itself. The simile links words--utterances both verbal in encoded in visual symbols--to currency. Words are thereby equated with money, linked with the primary means of access to material sustenance both within the text and for the early twenty-first century readers of that text. Accordingly, they are established from the outset as things to be valued, and it follows that if words are to be valued, they are to be treated with care. They are to be prized, not treated sloppily, an attitude reflecting that expressed by Strunk and White in their seminal work The Elements of Style. White notes in his introduction to the text that it is in its origin a "summation of the case for cleanness, accuracy, and brevity" in writing (xiii), which tends toward precision and away from sloppiness. Too, Strunk and White emphasize clarity, explicitly bidding writers to "Be clear" and remarking both that "clarity can only be a virtue" and that "Muddiness [the opposite of clarity] is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a destroyer of life, of hope" (79). While it may be couched in hyperbole, the basic idea is one valued by many writers. Clarity, the manifestation of precision in the encapsulation of ideas by language, is desirable, and its lack is perilous to writing. In constructing the simile of her novella's title, Hobb indicates that the text will address the attitude Strunk and White express, both that precision is a boon and its lack a bane.
The attitude is carried on throughout the text. Lack of precision in the use of language is repeatedly presented badly in the novella. An early example comes in an exchange between the protagonist, Mirrifen, and a subordinate character, Jami. The latter, a young, pregnant woman, has asked Mirrifen for a particular favor relating to Mirrifen's training as a hedge-witch. In Hobb's Six Duchies, hedge-witches are makers of charms and other minor magical items that produce specific effects; Mirrifen had been apprenticed to a drunkard of a hedge-witch, from whom she was able to learn "how much water to mix with her rum" and "six different places to hide from her when she was drunk" rather than the mysteries of art that were supposed to have become hers. She also learned a cautionary tale regarding the kind of request Jami makes of her, a sleep charm, and she relates it to Jami; a hedge-witch sought to make a sleep charm for herself, succeeding and consequently sleeping so long and so deeply that she died of starvation before being able to wake again. Jami, who had asked for the charm as a sleep aid in her late pregnancy, reacts badly to the story, shuddering and calling it "'A pleasant tale to sleep on!'" The reaction to the story and the story itself attest to the negative effects attendant on a lack of consideration for usage. Jami's reaction suggests an unintended consequence of Mirrifen's story; told initially to explain refusal to comply, the story instead provokes a fear reaction that inhibits the sleep Jami had sought. The story itself implies that the lack of concern for the outcomes of language--and the system of symbols Hobb's hedge-witches deploy in their charms is very much a language, as Mirrifen repeatedly notes reading specific ideograms in them--can have potentially fatal results. Both therefore serve as an indictment of sloppy usage.
Other chastisements of sloppy language are more explicit. At one point in the novella, Mirrifen falls asleep when she is supposed to be guarding a well. When asked by a pecksie--a fairy-like creature repeatedly noted, if rarely depicted, in Hobb's Six Duchies--what she was doing, Mirrifen replies that she is guarding, prompting the pecksie to exclaim "with disdain. 'You not guard. You sleep!'" The lie, an imprecision, is reproved, marking such statements as undesirable. It is not the only erroneous use the pecksie chastises. For the pecksie had been the beneficiary of an attempt by Mirrifen to craft a charm against fever--one that was in need of correction, as the pecksie notes with seeming aspersion to Mirrifen, stating that it "Worked. Just not as good as it could. Lucky for me, it not do harm" [sic]. Also, as the conversation continues, the pecksie adds (in an authorial reference back to the novella's title) "Words are like coins. To spend carefully, as they are needed only. Not to scatter." A later comment in the conversation between Mirrifen and the pecksie finds the latter ominously asserting that "Careless words are dangerous. To all." Here, again, Hobb echoes Strunk and White, who offer writers such advice as "Do not overwrite" (72), "Do not overstate" (73), and "Avoid the use of qualifiers" (73). When, later, Mirrifen complains of pecksie actions taken in response to her own stated desires, the pecksie replies "You spent the words, and this is what they bought you" returning to the currency comparison and reasserting the peril of poor usage by connecting it to results not wanted or intended. Linguistic precision and frugality are repeatedly emphasized by the pecksie, and their lack repudiated. The fact of the repetition, occurring fairly often in a relatively short text, foregrounds in the text of Hobb's novella the idea that sloppiness in language is to be repudiated, suggesting that it is a key discourse of the text.
Hobb's pecksies themselves are much concerned with the effects of language, and therefore with its exactitude. In discussions with Jami, who fears and loathes the pecksies for much of the novella, Mirrifen learns the power that words have over the pecksies. Jami notes that pecksies become bound to those from whom they accept assistance, becoming obliged to perform the actions they are bidden by those people. Jami reinforces the idea, stating explicitly that "Words bind pecksies," an idea that does much to explain the frequency with which the pecksie known to Mirrifen berates those who are sloppy in their usage; as happens in the novella--for Mirrifen had aided the pecksie with whom she speaks before speaking with Jami about pecksies--sloppy wording results in sloppy binding. While any binding of a sentient being is likely to be objectionable, an inadvertent and careless one is particularly loathsome in its display of lack of concern for the rights of other thinking beings. And Jami, continuing her conversation with Mirrifen, comments on the need to target commands issued to bound pecksies--and on the potential effects of not targeting them:
You can't just say, 'wash the dishes' or they'll wash the dishes all day long. You have to say, 'wash the dirty dishes until they're clean, wipe the dishes until they're dry, and then put them in the cupboard.' They do exactly what you say. So when my mother told them 'Go away!' they had to go and keep going. Forever. Because no one ever gets to 'away', do they? They had to keep walking until they dropped dead in their tracks. [sic]The pecksies are themselves aware of such dangers. The pecksie bound to Mirrifen flatly asks if Mirrifen will issue her the fatal command to "Go away!" and exhibits displeasure at what she perceives as an insulting and ill-considered command. For pecksies, an accidental word or phrase can result in horrific consequences; a deliberately hateful one can kill off whole families. They are therefore at pains to ensure that their utterances are exacting, giving no more than is necessary to be clear so as to minimize the possibility of unintended consequences. Their demonstrated attention to precision in language, their repeated avoidance of sloppiness in it, highlights the perils attendant upon not taking care with utterances--something particularly true for those whose lives depend on the ways words work.
The primary textual example through which Hobb imparts the notion that inattention to the specifics of language use is a danger is in the birth of Jami's child. That the danger proceeds from inattention to the details of usage is made obvious well in advance of the peril presenting itself; at Jami's request, Mirrifen attempts to make a charm to keep the pecksies out of the room in which Jami is to give birth. As she does so, however, she realizes the limits of her understanding, but arrogantly pushes on anyway. Hobb writes of Mirrifen that "She didn't know the charm symbol for 'pecksie.' No matter. She knew 'person' and 'small' and the warding words that prevented creatures from passing through. Those would work well enough." Mirrifen recognizes her incapacity, her lack of specific understanding, yet proceeds ahead with magic she knows from experience to be potentially dangerous, as her early comments about the sleep-charm-slain hedge-witch indicate. She also knows that, in matters involving pecksies, specificity of language is of overriding importance; both Jami and the pecksie bound to Mirrifen repeatedly emphasize the point. That Mirrifen disregards both concerns, and fairly blithely, does much to indicate that danger resulting from sloppy language is forthcoming.
That danger manifests in short order. Birth is always perilous in a milieu such as that of the Six Duchies. As remarked upon earlier, Hobb's fantasy kingdom is one very much in the Tolkienan tradition, which means that it is "loosely evocative of romanticized notions of Continental Europe in the High Middle Ages" (Elliott, "Divergent" 1). The medieval period was hardly the height of obstetric practice, and even in glossed-over, sanitized versions of such narratives, mothers frequently die in childbirth--as do their children. "Grittier" iterations of the Tolkienan tradition--such as the main line of Hobb's Six Duchies narratives--imply even more risk of death in childbirth. Mirrifen is well aware of the already-existing potential risk; she "longed for the birth [of Jami's child] as much as she dreaded it....the closest midwife was a half-day's walk away," suggesting the danger in the event and the lack of access to convenient help for it. The inherent risks of childbirth contribute to the sense of foreboding that Mirrifen's overconfidence fosters, making it no surprise that Jami's accouchement goes as it does.
How it goes is poorly, and all as a result of Mirrifen's lack of specificity. Jami's delivery is long and arduous; it lasts from near dawn well into the night, wracking Jami's body without ceasing for hours on end without producing the child. Mirrifen realizes that the delivery has gone dangerously, fatally wrong, leaving Jami weakened almost to the point of death by exhaustion, noting at length that "Jamie [sic] would die, painfully, the child dying within her." The pecksies eventually are able to intervene, and their own skills leave Mirrifen deep in slumber--and Jami and her child alive and well. The pecksie bound to Mirrifen notes that it was Mirrifen's charm that had held the baby--a "small person"--inside of Jami before the pecksies could intervene, and Mirrifen realizes that it was through her lack of specificity in language that the near-fatality of the delivery came to be. It is through sloppy usage that Jami's child is imperiled, and as a direct result of it, Jami is herself imperiled. Two lives are risked through an arrogant misuse of systems of symbols, making such misuse, such inattention to the details of language, something Hobb uses the novella to argue is very much to be avoided.
For a writer to be concerned with language is to be expected; language is the means through which writers seek to sustain themselves, so that words are very much like coins for them. That Hobb's novella is preoccupied with pointing out the perils in poor use of language, then, is accordant with her identity as a writer. Even for those who do not identify as writers, however, the message that exactitude in language is desirable is worth noting. Those who have had to handle legally binding documents such as contracts and the texts of laws can easily be made aware of what dangers lurk in unclear wording and phrasing. Those who have been given directions know that precision in them is vitally important. And for all people, attention to the details of words is of a piece with attention to the details of all things. In such attention is mastery, and in its lack, a path to potential ruin.
Works Cited
~Elliott, Geoffrey B. "A Divergent Medievalism in Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies." 2013. TS.
~---."Manifestations of English Arthurian Legend in the Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies of Robin Hobb." MA thesis. U of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2007. Print.
~Hobb, Robin. Words like Coins. Burton, MI: Subterranean P, 2012. E-book.
~Strunk, William, Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Pearson, 2009. Print.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Sample Summary
Students, below appears an example of the kind of summary I have requested of my students in remedial English coursework, as discussed here.
In the 13 July 2013 New York Times article "The Trouble with Testing Mania," the editorial board of the New York Times argues that the testing situation in place across the United States needs substantial correction. The board notes that although testing is well intentioned, it has been ineffective at improving instruction, largely due to the haphazard way in which it has been implemented and the institutional pressures it generates. Other countries and other measures work better, as the board notes, but alternatives will be adopted only slowly it at all unless state and federal governments take measures to ease the transition. Although substantially correct, the board's comments are late in coming; educators have been making such remarks for many years, and no real changes have been implemented. It is therefore unlikely that the article will be effective in its implied purpose of driving changes to educational policy.
In the 13 July 2013 New York Times article "The Trouble with Testing Mania," the editorial board of the New York Times argues that the testing situation in place across the United States needs substantial correction. The board notes that although testing is well intentioned, it has been ineffective at improving instruction, largely due to the haphazard way in which it has been implemented and the institutional pressures it generates. Other countries and other measures work better, as the board notes, but alternatives will be adopted only slowly it at all unless state and federal governments take measures to ease the transition. Although substantially correct, the board's comments are late in coming; educators have been making such remarks for many years, and no real changes have been implemented. It is therefore unlikely that the article will be effective in its implied purpose of driving changes to educational policy.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Sample Summary
Below appears an example of the kind of summary discussed here, although it treats a different source than is acceptable for the class assignment.
On 25 June 2013, Cracked.com published Luke McKinney's "6 Important Things Nobody Tells You About Graduate School." In the article, McKinney lays out a series of what he perceives as truths about the graduate experience, grounding them in his own stated experience of graduate school. Throughout the article, he repeatedly returns to the idea that the kind of learning distilled in postgraduate academic programs is the major driving force behind human advancement and achievement, using the six points of his title to illustrate how it is so and the value of its being so. Although McKinney restricts his discussion to the sciences, he expresses himself clearly and in such a fashion that the article is a useful piece for consideration no only by his own colleagues, but by all engaged in the highest levels of formal education.
On 25 June 2013, Cracked.com published Luke McKinney's "6 Important Things Nobody Tells You About Graduate School." In the article, McKinney lays out a series of what he perceives as truths about the graduate experience, grounding them in his own stated experience of graduate school. Throughout the article, he repeatedly returns to the idea that the kind of learning distilled in postgraduate academic programs is the major driving force behind human advancement and achievement, using the six points of his title to illustrate how it is so and the value of its being so. Although McKinney restricts his discussion to the sciences, he expresses himself clearly and in such a fashion that the article is a useful piece for consideration no only by his own colleagues, but by all engaged in the highest levels of formal education.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Sample Summary
The summary appearing below is adapted from another blog I maintain. It conforms to the standards laid out here.
On 22 June 2013, the New York Times featured Verlyn Klinkenborg's "The Decline and Fall of the English Major." In the article, Klinkenborg offers an elegy for the decreasing numbers of undergraduate students of English language and literature. Cited are graduation numbers from Yale and Pomona College as well as a tripartite reason for the decline those schools evidence. Presented also is a statement of the value of the humanities in general and of the English degree specifically--not a direct monetary value, but a value insofar as it represents being able to effectively express thoughts and ideas, thereby effecting agency in the world. Unfortunately, Klinkenborg's statistical data offer too small a sample to be representative, and the statement of value--a fairly standard view among humanities scholars--is too vague to convince those who are not already convinced of the value of the humanities that the decline of their study in one form at the undergraduate level is lamentable.
On 22 June 2013, the New York Times featured Verlyn Klinkenborg's "The Decline and Fall of the English Major." In the article, Klinkenborg offers an elegy for the decreasing numbers of undergraduate students of English language and literature. Cited are graduation numbers from Yale and Pomona College as well as a tripartite reason for the decline those schools evidence. Presented also is a statement of the value of the humanities in general and of the English degree specifically--not a direct monetary value, but a value insofar as it represents being able to effectively express thoughts and ideas, thereby effecting agency in the world. Unfortunately, Klinkenborg's statistical data offer too small a sample to be representative, and the statement of value--a fairly standard view among humanities scholars--is too vague to convince those who are not already convinced of the value of the humanities that the decline of their study in one form at the undergraduate level is lamentable.
Friday, June 21, 2013
About an In-Class Assigment in Technical Writing and Presentation
A few semesters ago, I began using a particular in-class assignment in my ENG 202: Technical Writing and Presentation classes at Technical Career Institutes. In the assignment, I give students a document to read, usually one originating online. I ask them also to examine the document in terms of how well it does or does not fulfill the functions of technical writing, as determined early in the semester through guided class discussion of students' background knowledge of technical documents (that the classes are at a technical school helps with this).
Students do, admittedly, have some difficulty with the assignment. Several fail to understand the prompt that is given--"Discuss how [the selected document] functions, and how it fails to function, as a piece of technical writing. Please refer to specific textual and paratextual details to support your discussion"--and offer instead a summary of the piece or a free response to it. I am happy to see that the students can write an adequate summary and are able to engage meaningfully with their readings, but within the context of the course, I cannot necessarily reward their doing so on the assignments given. If, as is often assumed to be the case for a technical writing class, the task is in large part preparation for the workforce, then I very much cannot reward inattention to the assigned task. Employers are hardly likely to, after all.
Even with the difficulties some students face, however, the assignment is valuable. Other students perform increasingly well on the designated tasks, improving each class meeting in terms of their abilities to stake claims, identify and deploy appropriate textual evidence to support those claims, and explain how the evidence functions to support their ideas. They also improve in the usage issues upon which I comment as part of the requirements of the course and of academic instruction in writing generally. And all of the students are repeatedly engaged in examination of "real-world" materials that correspond with the concepts covered in textbook readings and continued classroom discussion. They are therefore offered abundant practice in working with technical writing materials and in interpreting evidence, both of which are likely to be helpful to them in their careers and the lives which enfold them.
The assignment could be easily deployed in other contexts. For a technical writing class at something other than a technical school (and even at a technical school, although I do not do so with my own classes as explicitly as I perhaps could), the initial discussions of technical writing features that undergird the assignment could be supplemented with provided exemplars of technical writing, arriving at something of a list of genre features from representative high-quality examples of it. Also, the documents I offer to my students tend to reflect my own personal and professional interests--they have included such disparate ideas as aikido, gaming, and tenure processes--largely because I am able to access them easily. Some of the difficulties students have faced with the assignment possibly stem from unfamiliarity with the content. Examples of technical writing in other areas of inquiry could be meaningfully deployed to correct for that particular problem. (This presupposes that it is a problem, which may well not be the case.) Further, the documents I provide, owing to the limitations of the teaching environment in which I offer them, are somewhat decontextualized; they are often print-outs of online materials, and the shift in medium affects the way in which they can be interpreted. Presenting them in their native hyperlinked online context could allow access to more illuminating paratextual features--as well as to hypertextual features which teaching more aligned with digital media can more effectively address.
While the above paragraph identifies ways in which I might improve upon my own use of the assignment, it is still one well worth using. It, like the riddle assignment about which I have written before, does much of what I want to have done in the classroom, offering students practice in the specific skill proficiencies mandated by course descriptions and connecting that knowledge to the larger cultural contexts in which my students will work and live.
Students do, admittedly, have some difficulty with the assignment. Several fail to understand the prompt that is given--"Discuss how [the selected document] functions, and how it fails to function, as a piece of technical writing. Please refer to specific textual and paratextual details to support your discussion"--and offer instead a summary of the piece or a free response to it. I am happy to see that the students can write an adequate summary and are able to engage meaningfully with their readings, but within the context of the course, I cannot necessarily reward their doing so on the assignments given. If, as is often assumed to be the case for a technical writing class, the task is in large part preparation for the workforce, then I very much cannot reward inattention to the assigned task. Employers are hardly likely to, after all.
Even with the difficulties some students face, however, the assignment is valuable. Other students perform increasingly well on the designated tasks, improving each class meeting in terms of their abilities to stake claims, identify and deploy appropriate textual evidence to support those claims, and explain how the evidence functions to support their ideas. They also improve in the usage issues upon which I comment as part of the requirements of the course and of academic instruction in writing generally. And all of the students are repeatedly engaged in examination of "real-world" materials that correspond with the concepts covered in textbook readings and continued classroom discussion. They are therefore offered abundant practice in working with technical writing materials and in interpreting evidence, both of which are likely to be helpful to them in their careers and the lives which enfold them.
The assignment could be easily deployed in other contexts. For a technical writing class at something other than a technical school (and even at a technical school, although I do not do so with my own classes as explicitly as I perhaps could), the initial discussions of technical writing features that undergird the assignment could be supplemented with provided exemplars of technical writing, arriving at something of a list of genre features from representative high-quality examples of it. Also, the documents I offer to my students tend to reflect my own personal and professional interests--they have included such disparate ideas as aikido, gaming, and tenure processes--largely because I am able to access them easily. Some of the difficulties students have faced with the assignment possibly stem from unfamiliarity with the content. Examples of technical writing in other areas of inquiry could be meaningfully deployed to correct for that particular problem. (This presupposes that it is a problem, which may well not be the case.) Further, the documents I provide, owing to the limitations of the teaching environment in which I offer them, are somewhat decontextualized; they are often print-outs of online materials, and the shift in medium affects the way in which they can be interpreted. Presenting them in their native hyperlinked online context could allow access to more illuminating paratextual features--as well as to hypertextual features which teaching more aligned with digital media can more effectively address.
While the above paragraph identifies ways in which I might improve upon my own use of the assignment, it is still one well worth using. It, like the riddle assignment about which I have written before, does much of what I want to have done in the classroom, offering students practice in the specific skill proficiencies mandated by course descriptions and connecting that knowledge to the larger cultural contexts in which my students will work and live.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Sample Annotated Bibliography for "Searching the Hoard in _Words like Coins_"
Students, an example of the annotated bibliography discussed here appears below. Use it as a model for the kind of writing you are asked to do in my literature classes, but keep in mind the limitations on its applicability due to the differences in media between the model and what you are expected to submit to me.
~Carroll, Siobhan. "Honor-bound: Self and Other in the Honor Culture of Robin Hobb's Soldier Son Series." Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 18.3 (Fall 2007): 308-18. General OneFile. Web. 13 June 2013.
Carroll argues that Hobb uses fantasy tropes to lay bare conflicts among and within honor systems. She posits that in so doing, Hobb effectively interrogates the "standard" ideas of appropriate conduct that appear in fantasy literature, offering instead a nuanced and therefore more authentic view of the interplay between public and private expectations of behavior. Carroll illustrates her point primarily through two examples from the first book of the Soldier Son trilogy, acknowledging the limitations imposed by the then-incomplete series on her conclusions; she nonetheless asserts that Hobb offers a potentially helpful analogy of the dealings of the United States in its contemporary conflicts.
It is true that the Soldier Son novels are set in a milieu unlike that of Words like Coins, which would appear to limit the usefulness of Carroll's article in analyzing and discussing the novella. Carroll's is one of a limited number of scholarly sources that directly treat Hobb's work, and so is valuable for the project in that regard. In addition, in interrogating the relationships among peoples--something which does figure in Words like Coins--Carroll's article offers what might be taken as a paradigm of analysis to apply to the novella.
~Elliott, Geoffrey B. "Manifestations of English Arthurian Legend in the Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies of Robin Hobb." MA thesis. U of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2007. Print.
Elliott examines deployment of Arthurian tropes and figures in the six novels of Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies. While there are not one-to-one correspondences, Hobb appropriates a number of features of milieu, protagonist, and supplemental characters employed in the major works of Arthurian legend in English, notably Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. The thesis ultimately argues, using Hobb as an example, that the medieval continues to merit study because it continues to inform the present.
As one of the relatively few scholarly sources directly treating the works of Robin Hobb, and one of the earliest, Elliott's thesis is particularly relevant to the study of her works. In addition, the text focuses in large part on the milieu of Hobb's Words like Coins, explicating the derivation of a number of the features of its setting and social structure. Accordingly, it serves as a possible resource for further understanding the novella.
~Roberts, Jude. "'Circumcision: everyone's talking about it': Legislation, Social Pressure, and the Body." Journal of Gender Studies 20.4 (December 2011): 347-58. EBSCOhost. Web. 5 June 2013.
Roberts uses the short story "Cut," written by Hobb under another pseudonym, and major theorist Judith Butler's work to illuminate how both fail to effectively move beyond the concerns of the individual to the possibility of effective collective action regarding female body modification, including genital cutting. In effect, Roberts uses the two writers' works to demonstrate that legislation of body issues is ultimately futile, as any law will ultimately undermine itself through being appropriated for purposes the law's framers could not foresee.
Roberts's work is useful as an entry into plumbing Hobb's work for concerns of gender studies. It tacitly asserts that at least some parts of the author's corpus have engaged with serious cultural concerns. In so doing, it validates continued study of the author's corpus, for if one of a given writer's works can sustain academic critique, then others may well be able to do so.
~Strunk, William, Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Pearson, 2009. Print.
Long held to be one of the standard texts on appropriate composition practice, The Elements of Style lays out a number of principles of usage, compositional practice, form, use of common expressions, and style. In addition, the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the text offers commentaries about its utility and development, illuminating further the value of the text.
Strunk and White admittedly do not directly engage with Robin Hobb. They do, however, engage fully with the tasks of writing as traditionally--and in many cases still--understood. Their recommendations carry such weight as to be accepted as fundamental principles of writing. What they say about the task of writing, then, can serve as a paradigm for it, offering a standard of comparison against which Hobb's statements concerning writing can be evaluated.
~Tolkien, J.R.R. “On Fairy-Stories.” J.R.R. Tolkien: “The Monsters and the Critics” and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: Harper Collins, 2006. Print. 109-61.
Tolkien argues in "On Fairy-Stories" that fantasy literature is as deserving of study as any other form of literary art. In his view, it depends largely upon magic for its character, and while the presence of magic is necessary, the more closely the milieu of fantasy literature adheres to the observable reality of the reader, the more effective it will be. Also, in its use of magic, fantasy literature offers a form of escape more appropriate to adults than to the children towards whom much fantasy literature is directed. In addition, Tolkien posits that any literary art partakes of the divinely creative, so that even fantasy literature becomes an act of devotion.
Any consideration of fantasy literature seemingly must take Tolkien into account in some way. As "On Fairy-Stories" forms a nucleus of fantasy criticism, being perhaps the seminal work in the field, it suggests itself as a starting point for the conduct of any analysis of fantasy literature. It offers an early--and fairly reliable--idea of what marks fantasy literature as fantasy literature and as successful fantasy literature, and so it provides a standard of comparison against which Hobb's novella can be measured.
~Carroll, Siobhan. "Honor-bound: Self and Other in the Honor Culture of Robin Hobb's Soldier Son Series." Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 18.3 (Fall 2007): 308-18. General OneFile. Web. 13 June 2013.
Carroll argues that Hobb uses fantasy tropes to lay bare conflicts among and within honor systems. She posits that in so doing, Hobb effectively interrogates the "standard" ideas of appropriate conduct that appear in fantasy literature, offering instead a nuanced and therefore more authentic view of the interplay between public and private expectations of behavior. Carroll illustrates her point primarily through two examples from the first book of the Soldier Son trilogy, acknowledging the limitations imposed by the then-incomplete series on her conclusions; she nonetheless asserts that Hobb offers a potentially helpful analogy of the dealings of the United States in its contemporary conflicts.
It is true that the Soldier Son novels are set in a milieu unlike that of Words like Coins, which would appear to limit the usefulness of Carroll's article in analyzing and discussing the novella. Carroll's is one of a limited number of scholarly sources that directly treat Hobb's work, and so is valuable for the project in that regard. In addition, in interrogating the relationships among peoples--something which does figure in Words like Coins--Carroll's article offers what might be taken as a paradigm of analysis to apply to the novella.
~Elliott, Geoffrey B. "Manifestations of English Arthurian Legend in the Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies of Robin Hobb." MA thesis. U of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2007. Print.
Elliott examines deployment of Arthurian tropes and figures in the six novels of Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies. While there are not one-to-one correspondences, Hobb appropriates a number of features of milieu, protagonist, and supplemental characters employed in the major works of Arthurian legend in English, notably Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. The thesis ultimately argues, using Hobb as an example, that the medieval continues to merit study because it continues to inform the present.
As one of the relatively few scholarly sources directly treating the works of Robin Hobb, and one of the earliest, Elliott's thesis is particularly relevant to the study of her works. In addition, the text focuses in large part on the milieu of Hobb's Words like Coins, explicating the derivation of a number of the features of its setting and social structure. Accordingly, it serves as a possible resource for further understanding the novella.
~Roberts, Jude. "'Circumcision: everyone's talking about it': Legislation, Social Pressure, and the Body." Journal of Gender Studies 20.4 (December 2011): 347-58. EBSCOhost. Web. 5 June 2013.
Roberts uses the short story "Cut," written by Hobb under another pseudonym, and major theorist Judith Butler's work to illuminate how both fail to effectively move beyond the concerns of the individual to the possibility of effective collective action regarding female body modification, including genital cutting. In effect, Roberts uses the two writers' works to demonstrate that legislation of body issues is ultimately futile, as any law will ultimately undermine itself through being appropriated for purposes the law's framers could not foresee.
Roberts's work is useful as an entry into plumbing Hobb's work for concerns of gender studies. It tacitly asserts that at least some parts of the author's corpus have engaged with serious cultural concerns. In so doing, it validates continued study of the author's corpus, for if one of a given writer's works can sustain academic critique, then others may well be able to do so.
~Strunk, William, Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Pearson, 2009. Print.
Long held to be one of the standard texts on appropriate composition practice, The Elements of Style lays out a number of principles of usage, compositional practice, form, use of common expressions, and style. In addition, the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the text offers commentaries about its utility and development, illuminating further the value of the text.
Strunk and White admittedly do not directly engage with Robin Hobb. They do, however, engage fully with the tasks of writing as traditionally--and in many cases still--understood. Their recommendations carry such weight as to be accepted as fundamental principles of writing. What they say about the task of writing, then, can serve as a paradigm for it, offering a standard of comparison against which Hobb's statements concerning writing can be evaluated.
~Tolkien, J.R.R. “On Fairy-Stories.” J.R.R. Tolkien: “The Monsters and the Critics” and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: Harper Collins, 2006. Print. 109-61.
Tolkien argues in "On Fairy-Stories" that fantasy literature is as deserving of study as any other form of literary art. In his view, it depends largely upon magic for its character, and while the presence of magic is necessary, the more closely the milieu of fantasy literature adheres to the observable reality of the reader, the more effective it will be. Also, in its use of magic, fantasy literature offers a form of escape more appropriate to adults than to the children towards whom much fantasy literature is directed. In addition, Tolkien posits that any literary art partakes of the divinely creative, so that even fantasy literature becomes an act of devotion.
Any consideration of fantasy literature seemingly must take Tolkien into account in some way. As "On Fairy-Stories" forms a nucleus of fantasy criticism, being perhaps the seminal work in the field, it suggests itself as a starting point for the conduct of any analysis of fantasy literature. It offers an early--and fairly reliable--idea of what marks fantasy literature as fantasy literature and as successful fantasy literature, and so it provides a standard of comparison against which Hobb's novella can be measured.
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