04.10.06
Posted in Blog News, Visual Rhetoric, Embodiment, Assignments, Schedule at 10:53 am by Richard Parent
This Wednesday, April 12th, we’ll be meeting in Second Life rather than in meatspace (i.e., the space in which your “meat” exists (i.e., your physical body (i.e., in the real world))) during class time.
Log in to Second Life. Click on the FIND button at the bottom of your screen. When the FIND page comes up, click on the PEOPLE tab, and then type in my avatar’s name, KAM PREVOST. If my profile doesn’t automatically come up, click on my name. Then click on the INSTANT MESSAGE button at the bottom of my profile and send me a quick IM letting me know you’re here.
I’ll teleport you to wherever it is I’ve decided to hold class. What could be simpler?
If you’re having trouble with your computer and can’t get into SL, come to the Center for Teaching and Learning at 303 Bailey Howe Library. I’ll be there (in the flesh) and will have a spare laptop with SL on it for you to use.
I’ll see you all in Second Life on Wednesday!
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04.05.06
Posted in Visual Rhetoric, Embodiment, Assignments at 2:20 pm by Richard Parent
Welcome to Second Life!
Explore. Experiment. Hang with the locals. They’re a fun bunch, and they know a whole lot more about SL than you do. You could learn a lot from them. But while you’re doing all of this exploring, experimenting, hanging, and learning, just remember to respect the other Second Lifers and their privacy. In an interesting way, that might mean refraining from telling the other SLers that you’re here because of a college class.
I’ll explain.
If you were at a RW (real world) club and you noticed someone noticing you, you might get a little freaked out if s/he told you that s/he is at the club as part of a school project. You might get the feeling that s/he is studying you, analyzing you, and it’s hard to relax or have fun when you’re under a microscope.
In a similar way, try to keep from freaking out the other SLers you meet. We all know that you’re not in SL to analyze anybody else. You’re there to experience state-of-the-art virtual embodiment. You’re there to analyze your own experience, not the personal foibles and idiosyncrasies of anyone else.
… and yet. It would be very easy for people to get the wrong impression about what it is you’re doing, and you don’t want to find out what it’s like to be hated and feared by an entire online community. It ain’t pretty. So be careful.
Now, when you’re in SL, click the FIND button at the bottom of the screen and search for my avatar, KAM PREVOST through either the PEOPLE or ALL tabs. I’ll show up in the left window, and my profile will show up in the right window If you click on the PICKS tab in my profile, you can check out the freebie-laden sites I’ve started tracking down.
You can also Instant Message me if I’m online. Click on the IM button at the bottom of my profile.
The topics for Invention 3 are already posted on the Assignments page, so read through your options and start thinking about what you want to do.
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03.27.06
Posted in Blog News at 3:22 pm by Richard Parent
WHAT’S NEXT? LIFE AFTER MAJORING IN ENGLISH AT UVM
When: 3:30 Monday, April 10
Where: John Dewey Lounge
A round-table discussion with three UVM alumnae who majored in English and managed to find gainful employment in the world of business and publishing. The alumnae–who work in the fields of publishing, advertising, and marketing–will share their expertise on issues of immediate relevance to English majors about to enter into the labor market. Topics likely to be discussed include: job strategies, marketing the English major to prospective employers, making use of contacts, the decision whether or not to go to graduate school, and other information of immediate relevance to graduating seniors.
(I’d like to add that it’s never too early to start thinking about what to do after college. No matter what year you’re in, this could be a really useful panel to attend. -RP)
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03.16.06
Posted in Visual Rhetoric, Embodiment, Schedule, Readings at 8:05 am by Richard Parent
Shelley Jackson’s My Body: A Wunderkammer & can be accessed either through the course calender or by clicking here:
Shelley Jackson’s My Body: A Wunderkammer &.
Have fun!
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03.13.06
Posted in Visual Rhetoric, Embodiment, Schedule, Lecture Notes, Readings at 9:36 am by Richard Parent
When we get back from Spring Break, we’ll be moving into Peter Grenaway’s film, The Pillow Book.
The DVD will be on reserve in the media center at Bailey-Howe Library, and I will be showing it on Monday, March 27th at 7pm in Waterman 413.
I encourage you to come to the screening and to make plans with your classmates (and/or with the lovely folks from the other section of the course) to go get coffee or other libations after the film and chat about your thoughts on The Pillow Book.
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03.07.06
Posted in Blog News at 8:01 pm by Richard Parent
I’ve added a handy page about how to format quotations and titles to the sidebar. It is, handily enough, titled “Titles & Quotes.”
Check it out.
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03.06.06
Posted in Prose Rhetoric, Lecture Notes, Readings at 8:22 pm by Richard Parent
As we discussed in class, Ginsberg first unveiled Howl via a poetry reading.
What must that have sounded like? What must it have been like to be in that audience?
Now you can listen to the man, himself, reading the poem.
(And no, I don’t know who the other dude is — Ginsberg is on the right — nor what the monkey is doing. I just liked the picture.)
Howl and Other Poems is available as a spoken word recording.
Or you can buy it straight from iTunes.
Or you can download Howl from the Internet Archive (warning: seriously slow download).
And while you’re basking in all things Ginsberg, why not check out the Allen Ginsberg Trust? I particularly liked the “Questions answered” feature, although I didn’t quite agree with all of the answers…
In any case, you really owe it to yourself to go to iTunes and listen to the 30-second sample from Ginsberg reading from the “Footnote to Howl.” Freaky, man. Freaky. After you’ve listened to that a few times, we’ll talk about what Ginsberg is trying to do with the poem.
UPDATE: If you download the Internet Archive file, Ginsberg begins reading at around 39 minutes 15 seconds. He begins reading Howl around 41 minutes 15 seconds. This isn’t the original reading from 1955, but rather a much more recent performance.
UPDATE 2: And yes, you can find out what Ginsberg does when he gets to the line on page 19, “with mother finally ******.” But I’m not going to give away the surprise.
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Posted in Prose Rhetoric at 7:38 pm by Richard Parent
The New York Times has an article on the migration of young people out of Vermont. If you’re a Vermonter (even temporarily), you should read it.
I’m interested in the article for a few reasons.
1) Technology
UVM Economics professor Arthur Woolf (who occupies the office 1 floor directly below mine here in scenic Old Mill Building) is featured prominently in the article. He explains the decline in people moving to Vermont seen in the 1960s, 70s and 80s thusly:
“If you live in New York or Boston and you want to get away from it all, these days it’s just as cheap to fly out to Boise, Idaho, or Montana,” Professor Woolf said.
Now, I’m not sure I can agree with this, given the current state of the airline industry and the high price of fuel, but there’s something else we could take from his point — rather than looking at tourists, why not focus on permanent residents? The rise in telecommuters makes this demographic an important one to consider.
Our friends Joe and Joe (one of whom blogs) are both consultants. They moved to Vermont because they both could work anywhere and they wanted to get out of DC. They have offices in their fabulous antique farmhouse and now the only real difference is that they fly to various client locations from Burlington Airport instead of from Dulles or National.
Joe and Joe would seem to be ideal examples of the type of people Vermont should be trying to attract, and yet the telecommuting sword cuts both ways.
As Jennifer Black (formerly of Walden, Vt., now in Stoneham, Mass.) explains:
“When I’m up there visiting [Vermont], I think I would love to live up there,” said Ms. Black, 36. “The air’s so fresh.” But, she added, “you have to drive half an hour to a grocery store. I can walk to a grocery store from here. There’s a place where my kids can take swimming lessons readily available here.”
If you could telecommute to your job from anywhere, where would that be? Would you want to move to the country, to the city, to the suburbs, to Europe?
And given how ridiculously expensive the cost of living is up here, why would anyone do that to themselves?
On the other hand, if telecommuting within Vermont ever caught on (and I’m not holding my breath for that), it could substantially reduce the housing shortage and super-inflated housing costs in Chittenden County, while also reducing traffic congestion on Vermont’s inadequate roads. Of course, this wouldn’t solve the problem of isolation right away. It would take time to distribute the population more evenly over the state, which may increase the number of conveniences and social opportunities in areas outside of Burlington.
2) Rhetoric
Four examples of rhetoric in action (or rhetorical inaction — you make the call).
Example 1:
While Vermont’s population of young people shrinks, the number of older residents is multiplying because Vermont increasingly attracts retirees from other states. It is now the second-oldest state, behind Maine. Arthur Woolf, an economist at the University of Vermont, said that by 2030, there would be only two working-age Vermonters for every retiree.
The back-to-the-land influx of the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s, which once had Vermont growing faster than the country as a whole, has dissipated, Professor Woolf said. Vermont may have lost some cachet for the people often referred to as “flatlanders.”
I’ve never lived anywhere as disdainful of everyone else as Vermont. (That’s saying a lot — I’m from Texas, where “<3 NY? Take I-30 East” bumper stickers are still plentiful.) Between the compulsive need to identify oneself as an Nth-generation Vermonter (and really, why would you listen to anyone whose family hasn’t been in Vermont for at least 3 generations?) to establish credibility and the colorful phrase “flatlander” (meaning everyone else, even though Rocky Mountain states have many more, and much higher mountains than Vermont), if I didn’t have a ridiculously thick skin I simply wouldn’t feel comfortable here.
Here’s a fun drinking game: while reading your local Vermont newspaper (the Burlington Free Press, for instance, every time a quoted or referenced person’s family history is described in terms of the number of generations (or years) they’ve lived in Vermont, take a drink. You’ll be under the table before your frosted flakes get soggy.
Example 2:
As we’ve been discussing in the Rhetoric seminar, to instill fear in an audience, a rhetor needs to prove 3 things: that the thing to be feared is actually dangerous; that the thing to be feared will actually affect the audience members personally; and that the thing to be feared will affect the audience dangerously soon. Count how many of these our Governor achieves in these passages:
Vermont’s governor, Jim Douglas, is treating the situation like a crisis. [. . . .] Mr. Douglas said: “There’s an exodus of young people. It’s dramatic. We need to reverse it. The consequences of not acting are severe.”
Without more working people, Mr. Douglas said, “we won’t have tax revenue for anything other than public education and Medicaid. There’ll be no money for anything else.”
I think he might want to get a new talking-points writer. Preferably someone who has read Aristotle.
Example 3:
Does our university president manage any better? Let’s see:
Daniel M. Fogel, the University of Vermont’s president, says some have not grasped the seriousness of the problem. They believe a shrinking population will prevent overdevelopment, but these “antisprawl folks are the very people who tend to value very highly the environmental protections and the social programs, which the state is not going to be able to afford if the working population shrinks,” Mr. Fogel said.
As I’ve also been discussing with the Rhetoric classes, tone is really quite challenging to master, especially in writing. In this instance, President Fogel runs the risk of sounding the smug “I-told-you-so” note as he predicts that the people most vocal about limiting sprawl and development will find their precious social and environmental protections necessarily cut. What do you think — does this transcription of his comments pull it off?
Example 4:
I am really, really, really tired of the “perfect storm” metaphor. It needs to die a horrible, lingering death:
The situation stems from what Robert G. Clarke, chancellor of Vermont’s state colleges, calls “a perfect demographic storm” involving jobs, housing, the environment, education, even skiing.
This metaphor no longer has any power for me. It just makes me want to inflict bodily harm on whoever is foolish enough to drag it out yet again.
3) My Experience
I have to agree with all of the complaints the folks in the article raise — Vermont is too expensive, real estate is crazy out here, and renting is just as bad; good jobs are hard to come by (faculty spouses, for instance, frequently have trouble finding work, which makes staying at UVM impossible to afford); and yes, the majority of late-teens/twenty-somethings here are from somewhere else.
All that said, I do like it here. The Spouse has a job, I like my colleagues, and I like my flatlander students. Hey, I’ve even got a few Vermonters in my classes. I imagine that must be akin to finding a four-leaf clover. How could I complain?
(X-posted to Digital Digressions)
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02.27.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:20 am by Richard Parent
That is, I’ve put a lengthy discussion of what I’m demanding from your position papers up on the blog.
You can get to it by either clicking the link on the right under “PAGES” that says “Dialog/Debate Position Paper,” or you can simply click here (which will take you to the same place).
As always, let me know if you have any questions.
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02.15.06
Posted in Embodiment, Lecture Notes, Readings at 6:48 pm by Richard Parent
The following dropped into my inbox — and it’s good stuff. So read it. And then comment on it.
I had a few thoughts in class today.
In relation to “How to Tell a True War Story,” a poem by Jack Gilbert called “Poetry is a Kind of Lying”:
Poetry is a kind of lying,
necessarily. To profit the poet
or beauty. But also in
that truth may be told only so.
Those who, admirably, refuse
to falsify (as those who will not
risk pretensions) are excluded
from saying even so much.
Degas said he didn’t paint
what he saw, but what
would enable them to see
the thing he had.
—
So how to you tell a true war story, how to you tell the Truth anyway, is there some ultimate form of Truth and if so, to get “it” across may involve so-called “lying.” Like we talked about in class, 1) if the truth reminds you of itself, it impells you to tell others and 2) truth may not be the happening, it may be more the experience of it happening and to get that truth across you have to share the experience. In the poem, Degas painted not what he saw (the “truth”) but what would enable the viewer of the painting to see what he had seen. Gilbert says “Poetry is a kind of lying, necessarily… in that truth may be told only so.” If there is some Absolute Form of Truth, the “lies” or imperfect replications (or the different versions of Lemon’s death) enable the reader to better understand the Truth, the Truth that maybe even those who witnessed the death are not sure of.
In another Jack Gilbert poem, called “Tear it Down,” Gilbert says, “We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.” In class talking about the movie “White Noise” (which I have not seen) reminded me of this passage from this poem: the brain finds patterns, constellations, in something that is patternless in order to make sense of it. Our brain wants to make patterns. Gilbert is saying that we see the constellations (which we have made up) but because of this, and although constellations are beautiful, we aren’t able to see the stars as stars. From our text (pg. 88), “In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself, and thererfore it’s safe to say that in a
true war story nothing is ever absolutely true.” Just a thought.
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