A Tragedy (Part 1: Emma)

You might think that a wonderful person such as myself wouldn't have to worry about his hard drive crashing twice in the span of six months. But it did. I lost a huge chunk of my work in the middle of finals. I say "huge chunk" and not "the whole fucking thing" because, strangely, I had a vision of this tragedy and emailed myself an early version. Proof again that I can see the future. Here is a copy of my paper. I like reading it over and seeing my hard work. I promise to start writing again after my hellish week is over.

Performance

This will be my fourth year as a teacher of college freshman. It's been an incredibly rewarding experience. I remember my first day of Florida State's teacher training/practicum -- affectionately called "Boot Camp" -- feeling very strange. I was fresh out of college and worried about starting graduate school. And they expected me to teach freshman?? I was just a freshman four years ago. Did they have any idea how terrible of a student I was as a freshman?

It didn't take me very long to get over my trepidation. I was too busy to worry about my feelings. The more I learned about the various theoretical positions toward teaching, the more I was persuaded that (a specific kind of) education could work to change the minds of young people, and the more I came to believe that certain practical methods could be utilized to improve writing and thinking among our students. Through that belief I became committed to my job.

The senior graduate students all tried to temper our enthusiasm. Speaking from experience, they said that we would quickly come to know how frustrating the job actually was. All the idealistic notions we had in our heads about enlightening young minds would be replaced by more practical concerns like work loads, student deficiencies, etc. I had a hard time believing that. In fact, I remember being disgusted when TAs tried to get the technology classrooms not because they had any meaningful pedagogical methods, but because those classes had a smaller enrollment cap.

The senior graduate students were right, of course. The enthusiasm fades. I used to methodically plan out my lessons, return papers over the course of a weekend, prepare hand-outs and discussion questions weeks in advance. It's not as if I don't do those things anymore (well... the grading part I don't do), it's just that I'm not really motivated to change. I've become comfortable. I think that my teaching methods work, and frankly I don't have any reason to change them.

Why do I think that my teaching methods work? No reason, really. "How can I tell the degree to which they improve?" you may ask. "Why would I even ask that question?" is what I would reply. I'm no dummy: my students do improve. I can tell that they're getting better. But the important question is: would they be getting more better (yeah, I said it) if I used a different method? That is not a question that I've ever been asked.

In my three years at Florida State, I was evaluated on my teaching just two times, none after my first year. My supervisor was a truly wonderful boss--the most supportive I've ever had--but she didn't have time to look over the shoulders of 100 TAs. The prevailing idea was that as long as you were not fucking up, you were good enough to teach.

I know that if I had someone looking over my shoulder, I would improve as a teacher. That's just a fact. If "getting better as a teacher" was actually part of my job instead of something that's just a "bonus," my students would be better served. I have no better argument for this than watching tenured professors just... not give a shit. Why do they need to improve? They've already got tenure. Never reply to emails, never attend department meetings and events, never make themselves available to students, never change the syllabus, etc.

So the question is this: given that we know that there is little-to-no ongoing evaluation of teachers, why is performance-evaluation (and in turn performance-pay) such a bad idea? I reocognize that it opens the door for 1) being fired on ideological grounds rather than job-performance, and 2) it makes teachers in some ways responsible for their students' deficiencies. But assuming that the body which hires/fires you is a teaching one (i.e. is a responsible professional organization and knows that they're evaluating you based on relevant criteria), and assuming that they're giving you valuable feedback on how to adapt your teaching style to meet the specific needs of your class, I actually think it's a really great idea. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Strike!

The GEO may go on strike next week. In the shitty contract UIC has offered us, the administration has eliminated the language that guarantees our tuition waiver. I've volunteered to be a strike captain, and I have to admit the prospect is really frightening. Though I admit that I have strong opinions about a limited number of subjects -- and will assert them if asked -- I'm actually a very quiet person and don't enjoy yelling at strangers. So I'll try to keep everyone (read: myself, Doug, and Matt) updated on the progress of our labor dispute.

I want to talk a little bit about cultural production and ideology. Here is the best example I can think of: To your right you'll see the building on UIC's campus that houses the English department. I think the building is beautiful. I'm always struck by how monolithic and assertive it appears, even though it's imposing and feels like a drain on your soul. In any case, the ideology happens alllllllll the way at the bottom, where that pathetic little sign reads:

"A WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY, A WORLD-CLASS CITY."

In certain respects, the letters on the sign communicate a true statement. But the words don't exist to assert the message of their language. The actual function of the sign is to resolve a social conflict inherent within the cultural context. The banner in question hangs above a scaffold surrounding University Hall. Its only real use-value is to protect us from the massive chunks of falling concrete which sometimes dive recklessly from the neglected building. In that sense, what's written on the banner is ancillary to its function as an ideological sign. You can read the words, but if you suggested that the meaning of whatever you might find there was independent of the safety hazard you'd be overlooking a significant material reality.

We can also understand this entire post in much the same way. I have a ton of grading I need to do before the strike, and so instead of doing that I'm writing on this thing. Yeah, I feel like I'm saying something interesting, but what I'm really doing is trying to resolve the supposed contradiction between "writing something socially useful" and "my responsibilities as a teacher."

Back to the grind.

Twisted Sister

I feel like a Twisted Sister music video:

WHAT KIND OF A MAN ARE YOU? YOU'RE WORTHLESS AND WEAK. YOU DO NOTHING. YOU ARE NOTHING. YOU SIT IN HERE ALL DAY AND PLAY THAT SICK, REPULSIVE, ELECTRIC TWANGER. I CARRIED AN M-16, AND YOU, YOU CARRY THAT THAT GUITAR. WHO ARE YOU? WHERE DO YOU COME FROM? ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?

And although I carry no ideological commitments to the liberatory potential of "Rock 'n Roll," I do feel some existential pressure in the sense that it's time to figure out my exam and committee lists, and I don't have the slightest clue what the fuck I'm going to do. It doesn't help that every time I think I have a good idea, someone (smarter) has already written about it. Lame.

In other news, I'm reading Moby Dick right now. I don't know why it gets such a bad rap. Ishmael is actually kinda funny. Ahab of course is insane, but he's a force of Shakespearean magnitude (some of his tyrannical ranting is even written in blank verse). The chapters very from tracts on natural history, to drama, to first-person meditations on the virtues of sleeping in the same bed as cannibals. And yet, no one ever even tried to get me to read it as a undergraduate. Makes me wonder what I'm missing.

Jane Austen Is Meh

"Jane Austen? Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book." -- Mark Twain

Jane Austen is not my favorite author. I have long insisted that her books stink of bourgeois virtue and predictability. This semester I've been given the distinct pleasure of reading two of her novels. Her unfinished novel Sanditon -- of which I found a printed first edition in UIC's stacks (she had strange spelling habits) -- and Emma. Fortunately for me, I've been able to drift in and out of consciousness while reading this thing because I have a readily available template already stored in my memory:

"She makes me detest all her people, without reserve. Is that her intention? It is not believable. Then is it her purpose to make the reader detest her people up to the middle of the book and like them in the rest of the chapters? That could be. That would be high art. It would be worth while, too. Some day I will examine the other end of her books and see. " -- Mark Twain (American Hero)

But just like that other detestable narrative describing the harrowing trials and tribulations of upper-class party-goers, if you read Jane Austen enough, her merits begin to shine through..... sorta.

Here are a few things that I think are interesting about Emma:

• Mr. Knightley is clearly a rational and intelligent character that doesn't tolerate Emma's garbage. He seems to serve as a point of reference for Austen's world-view.

• The novel investigates the conflict (conspiracy?) between an emergent bourgeoisie and the gentry. This seems strange considering Austen was a member of the gentry, but her readers--to this day--are overwhelmingly bourgeois. At times it seems as though she values prudence, but at times it seems as though she values respectability, honor, etc.

• Rich people are depicted as infirm, weaklings.

• Her books are focused on social realities rather than meditations that look like personal indulgence.
  

I tried my best, but that's the best I could come up with. Here is a short list of things about Jane Austen that irritate me:

• She is not as funny as she thinks she is.

• I understand that her intention is to create complex figures for ridicule and satire, but too often she is more complicit with them than critical.
  

• The logic of the narrative attempts to convince us that what poor people want is be looked after (charity) rather than not being poor. For all their sense, their concern with the welfare of others doesn't extend past those within their social class.
  

• There's nothing at stake in any of these novels. I ask myself -- what would happen if the character didn't get what he or she wanted? and I come up with -- they would continue to live their life of leisure. I think this stems from the fact that Austen has a remarkably bland sense of what's at stake in the prospect of marriage (outside class distinctions, which I think is insightful). What do the married couples do in these novels? What about the prospect of marriage seems actually appealing? There's no intimacy between the married characters, just surface-level sentiment. It was a good match because the partners complimented each other? What the fuck does that even mean?? Which leads me to my next point...

• The only thing that ever happens is that people visit each other and gossip about the affairs of other people. Now I understand that novels are supposed to be about character and not plot, but I don't think this formal device (idle gossip) actually gives the reader a good sense of who a person really is. To be quite reductive, there is too much "telling" and not enough "showing" -- and when there is "showing," Austen resorts to absurdly cliche description and action. The narrator is the only interesting "character" -- everyone else appears remarkably interchangeable. Perhaps I'm not well-versed enough in early 19th century British fiction to be able to sense Austen's urgency with the prose, but I simply do not understand the difference between all the Mrs. so-and-sos.
  

Luckily, I'm not the only one who thinks that Jane Austen is overrated.

Give The People What They Want

If I don't update this blog, no one will read it. And I suppose that's fine, but I'd be interested in facilitating some kind of intelligent discussion about issues that I think are important or hilarious. Unfortunately (for you, gentle reader), the vast majority of my life is dedicated to thinking about my professional interests. The only hobby I seem to have is following college football news.

So here's something I've been thinking about quite a bit:

My professional work as a literary critic has no broad social impact. Neither do your stories or your poems. In a certain way this is a necessity, because in order for something to really be considered professional literary criticism it has to contribute to a profession which by definition seeks autonomy. I personally don't know what Judith Butler thinks that she's doing, but her professional work certainly isn't helping anyone. The obvious reason: no one who disagrees with the ethical premise reads her work.

This probably goes for creative writing that's intentionally "political" in its depictions of race/gender/class disparity, because the editors and publishers know their audience, and their audience probably doesn't disagree with any of the claims made in the work. Criticism that attempts to show how Hollywood films are homophobic (in yet another way) are published in journals where this is presumably the consensus. The same can be said of poems or stories that attempt to show their audience that "this, too, is beautiful" as if within the community of artists the question was ever in doubt.

Since moving to Chicago my activism has dwindled to basically nothing. At FSU I had established myself -- I knew the faculty, I had a handle on my reading, I could anticipate and manage my teaching load, and I was familiar with the people in and near my department. Here, everything is totally different. As a result of this acclimation process, I've been doing no organizing at a time when graduate students at UIC perhaps need it the most.

Now, I'm not foolish enough to believe that my scholarship can in any way substitute for meaningful organizing work. But I am increasingly worried that if I neglect my scholarship, my organizing work will be for naught.

Of course, to believe that I should neglect activism in favor of scholarship is wrong. I think it's a mistake to conflate the two. I also think it's a mistake to conflate teaching with activism, as if "broadening young minds" could substitute for directing them toward certain tangible goals. It's one thing to teach students how to think critically (which should be value-neutral, in my opinion). It's another thing all together to ask students to attend certain rallies, to build personal relationships with them, etc.

So I suppose I'd like to get some input on what you think the role of art and scholarship is in relation to social change. I personally don't think there's much of a relationship at all. In fact, I think it's an ideological mistake to think there is. But I'm open to hearing other opinions.

Same-sex Marriage

You think I can get away with talking about this without an anvil falling on my head?

Probably not, but I've been thinking about this recently, and it stands to reason that neoliberalism will soon destroy any prejudice against same-sex marriage. This can best be seen in young conservatives who as the future of their party have--finally--figured it out.

It seems as though the trajectory of our society is one that has seen equality extended to an increasingly large population of once-marginalized persons. The Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Civil Rights Act of 1964, etc. There is still one group in the US that is still being denied the kinds of rights us "normal" people enjoy.

But of course, everything I said in that last paragraph is not true. The trajectory of our society has not led to a rise in equality. Quite the opposite. Society is measurably more unequal today than it's been in the past century, even before Jim Crow and women's suffrage. The income inequality gap is increasing rather than decreasing, leaving the largest marginalized group in our country--the poor--to fend for themselves.

What does that have to do with same-sex marriage? I'd like you to consider these paragraphs from a really smart guy:

"It’s no accident that same-sex marriage has emerged as a centerpiece of American cultural liberalism, rather than, say, card check (the Employee Free Choice Act, designed to make it easier for workers to unionize). Card check, despite its euphemistic name, is not about the need for individual choice. Just the opposite; it’s about escaping your individuality, and about the power of collective bargaining. Same-sex marriage, on the other hand, is all about the rights of individuals, and especially their right to form families.

The exemplary attraction of same-sex marriage emerges even more vividly when, as in California, it’s an alternative to domestic partnership—in other words, when the legal and economic issues have largely been factored out. Here, as the complaint recently filed in federal court by the Republican Ted Olson and the Democrat David Boies (opposing attorneys in Bush v. Gore but united in Perry, Stier et al v. Schwarzenegger) asserts, the harm in not being allowed to marry is 'severe humiliation, emotional distress, pain, suffering, psychological harm and stigma.' Of course, once you’ve identified our problems as having nothing to do with the redistribution of wealth, you’ve also identified the solution as one that has nothing to do with the redistribution of wealth. It’s these problems, described in this way, that American liberalism loves to solve. Hence the popularity of the memoir, always committed, like the lawyers in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, to the primacy of emotional distress and psychological harm."

So on the one hand, you see that there is a distinct act of discrimination here which is clearly unfair. But as Michaels reminds us, "The exemplary attraction of same-sex marriage emerges even more vividly when, as in California, it’s an alternative to domestic partnership—in other words, when the legal and economic issues have largely been factored out." Materially, same-sex couples in California are identical to heterosexual couples. And so the "attraction" of the issue is based on the emotional recognition of one's individuality rather than material interests, i.e. class.

As a heterosexual white male I risk opening myself to ad-hominem attacks, but I suppose I'll ask the question anyway: why do people want to be economically unequal and accepted rather than economically equal and disliked? And before you say "ideally you'd want to be both economically equal and socially accepted" let me just remind you about the relationship between the rise in inequality and the push for inclusion among America's social margins. The same-sex marriage example typifies the problem. Here we have a case where a large group of (presumably) poor and (members of a rapidly decreasing) middle class persons are socially antagonistic against a piece of discrimination that--materially--has very little effect on their lives, while the capitalistic structures which grind them us all into poverty are largely ignored.