first efforts

Finally, the Athens moment we've all been waiting for!

Last night, with former Athenians V. and T. in town for the weekend, and me arriving for New Year's celebrations, my beloved made reservations at the newest, hippest Athens dinner spot. Imagine our surprise and good fortune when Michael Stipe arrived shortly after we did and was seated at the table directly behind us. V. and I were simply beside ourselves. Finally, we would have the right answer to the ONE question everybody asks you when they discover you've been hanging out in Athens: Have you met REM yet?

The cutest thing of all was how the servers scurrying about the small but packed restaurant played it so cool in that alternativey Athens way, but then occasionally glanced at one another with eyes that shouted, "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!!!!!"

For the record, there was no surreptitious cellphone picture-taking, though I will confess to (what I hope was) discreet texting of the CU contingent up at the MLA in Chicago. I mean, come on! It was Michael freaking Stipe, we had to tell somebody...

Things I would blog about if I weren't still doing proofreading for the bleepin' book

how lucky I am to have the fabulous women friends I got to visit with over Christmas; we have known each other for more than 20 years, yikes!

how much I loved Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs and how I was so sad when I finished it last night that I actually had tears in my eyes;

how beautiful Rice Park looks at night when snow, "airborne particulate" pollution, and lots of Christmas lights conspire to create haunting scenes;

how my parents' neighborhood looks like something straight out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story when it snows big fat flakes on Christmas Day;

how the most awesome Christmas gift EVER is my new (and highly coveted) "Nuns Having Fun" 2008 wall calendar, described by one finnfam Christmas Eve party guest (a pre-Vatican-II Catholic school survivor) as "chilling. Truly chilling."

Merry Christmas Eve

Landmark Center from Rice Park, downtown Saint Paul

Ho-ho-home

Mississippi River from the monument at Summit Avenue, Saint Paul, 12.20.07

Home for holiday R&R, and couldn't be happier about that. Trying to cram in as much St. Paul stuff as possible while I'm here. This morning that included a trip with my beloved to Mickey's Diner followed by a visit to Common Good, the best independent bookstore around these parts since Hungry Mind passed into the great beyond (RIP). Common Good is owned by some guy named G. Keillor -- no idea who he is, but his books are tall, good looking, and above average. And he's got even better signage, as you can see below.

Critical whiplash and final thoughts

   

This morning I finished reading and commenting on the last of the final papers for my grad criticism course. I'll admit I've got a bit of topical whiplash, having read over the last three days fifteen essays on everything from Pericles to Reverend Billy. That's one of the difficulties, and joys, of teaching a broad methods course: a marvelous hodge-podge of stuff as people pursue their own interests. And let me tell you, these papers are good. You'll be seeing many of them at NCA and eventually in print, I'm sure of that.

As I mentioned earlier in the semester, this course was something of an experiment. Rather than focusing on method in the more typical ways it's taught in communication courses (e.g., see the table of contents of the Burgchardt book), we focused instead on strategies for working with different kinds of critical objects (e.g., single texts or artifacts, controversies, discursive fields, etc.). During each week the students leading discussion were to use that week's reading to help us collectively synthesize answers to particular questions: how does the critic justify attention to this particular critical object? what are dominant strategies for working with this critical object? what are benefits of attention to this kind of object? drawbacks or challenges? This approach tended to produce lots of listing and chart-making (see images from class, above), which in turn produced, I think, some lively discussions about what it is we critics do when we do what we do.

We also spent a few weeks talking about historical research, and especially the archive. We read Chuck Morris's forum on the politics of archival research (R&PA Summer 2006) and then I asked the students to visit an archive and write about it in light of issues raised in the forum. I think this assignment was quite successful because it allowed the students to experience the archive in a material way while at the same time reflect about what it meant for the archive to work rhetorically.

Next spring, on to topics courses: visual politics for the undergrads, and gender and rhetoric for the bridge crowd (for you non-UI folks, a "bridge" course is an advanced course that enrolls both grad and undergrad students).

But first, rest. And lots of holiday eating.

An open letter to my beloved

Honey? When we start house-hunting next spring? And we get all excited about some great house that has a two-car garage and a really, really long and wide driveway ? Will you please remind me of what I did for an hour and fifteen minutes this morning?

Thanks.

Ritual celebrating

Saturday snow on campus

The snow seems to have brought with it all kinds of ritual celebrating around here. Last night I joined members of my writer's group to help "bless" H's home writing space, a great ritual that reinforced our commitments to each other and reminded us all to focus our energies in creative directions. Tonight is a two-fer: dinner with T, D, and J to celebrate the successful jumping of T's first big tenure hurdle, then a holiday party with the runnerpeople. Tomorrow, I'll be participating in December graduation and hooding my third doctoral student; it will be an honor to help Dr. Besel celebrate that ritual.

In addition to ritual celebrating, I'm also celebrating the return of ritual. A relatively regular yoga practice seems to have come back to Green Street this week; I'm not exactly sure where it's been but it showed up on my back porch this week demanding to be let in; my hamstrings couldn't be happier. And my daily writing practice has more furtively crept back into the house as well, helping me find minutes here and there to noodle and doodle about nothing having to do with work. All of which feels perfectly glorious to me.   

Planning for spring semester

Looks like we'll be having a little unit on Hillary in my Gender and Rhetoric course next semester (on this last link, see KHJ's discussion of HRC beginning approx. 7 min. in).

Mother Nature vs. Air Tran; or, why my flight to see my beloved was cancelled this morning

Visualizing a semester

The view from my kitchen window this morning (with homage to Andrew Sullivan), after 2+ inches of gorgeous white fluffiness fell last night. The snow made both the neighborhood dogs and the runnerpeople very happy. For a runner (or a dog) there's nothing quite like tromping through freshly fallen snow in the early morning hours; it's enough to make a girl believe in a higher power.

Only after I downloaded this photo did I realize that it perfectly visualizes that bookend quality of semesters that makes the academic life so marvelous. Out the window, evidence of semester's end in the form of wintry weather; on the windowsill, evidence of summer's passing in the form of the last roma tomato rescued from my garden before the first freeze. And in between, a whole hell of a lot of work.