Ever since iBooks came out with the iPad, I have wanted to publish some of my own content. Yet, as anyone who has ever tried can attest, this is not easy. Creating EPUBs is just awkward and inconvenient. Think of it as writing a web page before WISWYG editors, or composing an essay on a pre-GUI word processor.

The recent release of Pages allows a document to be exported as an EPUB, but then to actually see it, a transfer to the iPad is necessary. In theory, this should be easy, but iTunes is such a piece of junk, that nothing like this is ever easy. (Say, Apple, when are you gonna fix this obsolete piece of bloatware anyway?) So, until the release of iBook Author, writing electronic books was not exactly convenient or easy.

Supposedly, iBooks Author is changing all of that. Roger Rosner’s demo was way cool — the video above gives you a bit of a look. The keynote emphasizes textbooks, but the potential for any kind of electronic publication is there. For example, I’ve started publishing literary content on LitMUSE, but wouldn’t delivery on the iPad be so much better, especially since you can annotate it and take it with you even without a network connection? Yes, maybe this is one more nail in the Web’s coffin. Plus, the ability to add multimedia content — e.g., Eliot reading The Waste Land, excerpts from a documentary on Homer, or photos I recently took in Greece — would boost it to the next level — especially in a Humanities class. I already have a ton of original content.

And speaking of the end of the Web, perhaps LitMUSE’s days as a course Web site are numbered in the light of the new iTunes U. It provides a slick way to deliver all sorts of content in a convenient format. They did not demo the course construction during the keynote, but Apple’s web site makes it look pretty easy. I know I would be perfect for this. Maybe this will be LitMUSE 2.0?

I already have ideas for my next semester’s classes, and I can’t wait to get started. I predict this is the beginning of a whole new chapter in my academic life.

Values worth having are not done so blindly. They must be examined critically and thoroughly in the harsh light of day by every generation. We must be deliberate in choosing and supporting our values if they are to have, well, value. It’s in this nebulous area where real education is integral for a healthy and prosperous society.

Real education is the water that cleans the grit of fear and ignorance out of our eyes. It washes away the superstition that allows us to be cowardly and hateful. It clears the way for us to see the possibilities that our lives could have free of the detritus of fearful tradition to trip us up. Today’s NYTimes obituary of Christopher Hitchens makes a similar point:

Not only do the things in the hate column inspire hate, they also try their best to destroy those things in the love column — the things that are a part of the subversive education.

I’m not talking about revolution. Subversion is more akin to quiet resistance à la Michel de Certeau. In The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson puts it this way: “intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.” Later, the protagonist is discussing a similar topic with the constable; he asks her which path will she take: “conformity or rebellion.” She answers:

Real education teaches the subtleties in life — the nuances. It teaches us to revel in ambiguity, not run from it. Contradiction is a time for consideration and dialog, not guns.

Yet, the demagogy that teaches absolutes and obeisance might also be a necessary part of education, only in giving the truly educated something to subvert and challenge. As Ted Nelson points out: primary education is more about training us how to behave than it is about teaching knowledge. Creativity is sacrificed for conformity. When we get through this structured system of imposed boredom and systematized indoctrination, we are called citizens and patriots and normal. If we stop here, we’re never truly educated.

Only after getting through my first two years as an undergraduate did I begin to get a real education. In these classes, I took an active part in my learning; instead of sitting in grids, we sat around conference tables; instead of being told what I should be learning, I was able to discover the knowledge for myself under the guidance of the professor. This was a time when poetry began to sing for me. This was a time when I discovered that the way I had always ordered my life — white, heterosexual, catholic, capitalist, male — was not the only way to see the world. In fact, it was a fairly  narrow way to look at life, and I have since discarded most of those arbitrary categories.

Maybe this is why I have always liked computers. Again, Stephenson gives us a look at a potential future for education in The Diamond Age. The primer that Hackworth illegally compiles for his daughter falls into the hands of a disenfranchised little girl living in a future China. The idea for The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer is thought up by a Lord who tells the actual builder to consider what it means to be subversive. Hackworth at least unconsciously takes this message to heart and invents a book that allows the reader to find her own knowledge. The book does not work by itself — there is a “ractor” named Miranda that is just as integral to Nell’s education as the primer — but it is a key component to subverting the dominance of the ideologies that would have kept Nell a second-class citizen her whole life. This primer reminds me of what is beginning to happen with education in the digital age. Or at least the possibility for a real education.

While much of education is the learning of what our parents and other authorities say is True, it’s as much about understanding how it’s not — of finding our own ways and discarding those truths that no longer work for us. I teach literature, irony, humor, nuance, subtlety. My job is to help others dispel their own tyrannies of thought.

I teach subversion.

About fifteen years ago, my favorite uncle died. Uncle Elwood was a wiry, jolly man who always had a pocket full of silver dollars. He was also a pharmacist, so one time I remember him giving me soda water after a particularly rich country meal during a Lucas Family reunion in Eastern Kentucky. Uncle Elwood had a way about him, something that my child’s eyes saw as kindness, compassion, and sympathy. The silver dollars he gave became a symbol not of economic generosity, but of a genuine human connection.

At his funeral was another uncle of mine: Harry is my father’s older brother who happens to be a Texas businessman. I have no real memories of Harry, having seen him maybe there times in my life — though I got a general sense that he was a bit overbearing and that children like me should keep to ourselves. At the time of Elwood’s death, the US DOJ was prosecuting the Microsoft Antitrust trial; it was also the last few years of the Clinton presidency. I was a supporter of the DOJ’s actions. After the funeral, a group of Elwood’s friends and family were sitting around chatting with his widow, my Aunt Dee. I forgot how the topic even came up, but I mentioned my support of the DOJ. Harry, in all his overbearing bluster, shut me down: “I can’t believe you’d say something like that. This country was built on innovation and the free market. Microsoft is a great American company and the government should keep its hands off.” (Or something like that.) Since this was an inappropriate time for a political discussion, I remember responding, “OK, Uncle Harry.” Later, Dad told me that’s the only way to respond to Harry sometimes. Apparently George W. Bush agreed with my Uncle Harry, since the antitrust suit against Microsoft was quietly resolved after his 2000 “election.”

Fast forward almost fifteen years, it seems the Uncle Harrys of this country have done a pretty good job keeping the rest of us quiescent while they do what they want, particularly when it comes to class. In fact, this country talks a lot about race, gender, and sexuality, but we never seem to have discussions of class — as if it has nothing to do with contemporary America, only Victorian England. Is that a part of the agenda? Is this a tacit understanding: we know there’s inequality, but that’s just the way it is. And, if you get uppity about it, we — you know those that control the government, the jobs, and the media — the 1% — might be forced to do something you won’t like. Even things like facts don’t get in these guys’ way. Just ask the scientists.

I, for one, am glad to see discussions finally being had about class. In a nation that loves its money, class might be the most important issue that we face.

Big business wants to make everything about business. The bottom line of business is the bottom line: money. I don’t want to over simplify, but I’m increasingly seeing a country that is preoccupied with accruing this metaphor of wealth. Money isn’t even a thing — it’s a representation of value. It is a mythological measure of success, influence, power, and respect. A country whose main goal is the accumulation of this ideological construct will tend to look at everything through this green millionaire’s monocle.

I’m not even talking about materialism here, though the relation should have relevance. Yes, ultimately money buys the material, so the story goes. The issue is with abstracts: those who make so much money that it can (1) never be transferred to the material, and (2) relieves others of their life, liberty, and private property. This is what seems to be happening now. Let me amend that: it has been happening for decades, but the world is finally feeling the radical effects of this sort of American corporate greedthink that has penetrated all aspects of our lives.

Where does this greedthink come from? I think it’s a lack of education.

About a year ago, I was invited to a friend’s birthday party. My friend is a lawyer, so there were other lawyers there celebrating. I got to chatting with one of them, and he asked me what I do. I responded that I was an English professor — and that day I just happened to have taught Homer. “Oh, yeah?” he said raising his eyebrows in an act of feigned enthusiasm. “Yes,” I replied. “There are few literary expressions that I would put above the significance of Homer’s epics.” This was a pretty mundane conversation, one that I have had at cocktail parties many times. My last statement is usually a verbal tranquilizer, but he was feeling contentious, and it had the opposite effect: “I don’t have to read Homer. That’s absurd! Homer has nothing to do with my life as a lawyer, and I wasted a lot of time and money in college taking nonsense courses that had nothing to do with life.” (Or something like that.) At this, the rest of the jovial conversations at the table stopped, and they were looking at this guy. I decided this was another Uncle Harry moment. We were at a birthday party after all.

Yet this guy’s attitude is exactly what I’m talking about. What is the most popular undergraduate major? You already know. That’s right: it’s business! Out of the top ten majors listed by The Princeton Review, over half of them would not be considered as liberal arts. In fact, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, business trumps the second most conferred major by double.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure the skills one learns in business courses are great for doing business, but what do they teach a student about being human? About compassion? Empathy? In other words, when the most popular college major in the US is business, we are training a world that is increasingly populated by Uncle Harrys, and we’re surprised at its current state? Is business inherently bad? No. However, when budgets are cut in education, which programs suffer? Take a guess. When we look at the education of our children and young adults as a business, we need to be prepared for what we’ll get.

I think we still need Homer and his scions. I think Elwood would agree.

Elwood and Dee

Cool, and I might even make a buck.

This is all well and good, but what about the obvious ethical implications of putting what really amounts to advertising on my teaching web site? I’ve been an Amazon Affiliate for some time — as well as having a Google AdSense account. I put ads on my web sites in various places (just glance to the right on this page), never really thinking that they would earn any money. And I’ve been right. I think to this day — after some years — I have a total of $29.62 in my AdSense account, and I’ve earned about as much from Amazon. The former is essentially unreachable until it reaches $50, so in 2015, Google might be buying me a bottle of Makers Mark.

I also have an affiliate account through my ISP. They actually pay pretty well. For each new account they get through me, I get $80. I’m not sure how they can even do that, since that’s about what they charge a year for web hosting. When I taught Writing for Digital Media a couple of years ago, I advertised for my ISP in various posts pertaining to the class, like this one. Nowhere did I require them to use my ISP, but I might have remarked that since I am familiar with how they work, and my experiences with them have all been good, that they could do worse choosing another hosting company. Many choose another company, but a few went with Midphase. The revenues I made just off that class paid for my year’s domain name renewal and hosting services.

In a world where everything is increasingly an advertisement, am I being naive in thinking that the system hasn’t been in the classroom for years now? Just look at the average price of college textbooks these days. Those “creative ways” that publishers use to make more money are likely not going away anytime soon. In fact, one walk around campus will prove that many colleges provide businesses with prime advertising spaces, not to mention that belovèd marketing to campus email systems — and I’m not even talking about penis-enlargement spam.

The bulletin boards are even in the classroom. I found myself lecturing in front of one the other day. Most of the flyers are for campus organizations and activities, but many are also for off-campus businesses, yard sales, guitar lessons, and spawn-care services. That’s in the classroom. I’m talking about a web site. My web site, funded by me, solely.

Still, if I were using paper syllabi, would I ever put an ad on it? Are required texts themselves an ad?

While you’re thinking about answers, you might as well do some shopping at my new store. Just click the advertisement below. Come again and have a nice day.

As I said: on the surface, I will always be an English Professor. At least, that’s what the title on my door and and by the dotted line on my contract. I’m tenured as an English Professor, so this designation is never likely to change at Macon State. That’s probably a good thing — even if it’s not accurate.

I think I have been drifting ever closer to the new forking path since graduate school. Again, my Ph.D. is in literature — 20th-century British and American Literature, to be exact. I took my comprehensive exams in three areas: the epic genre, British and American Modernism, and 20th-Century Literary Theory. Nevermind that my dissertation already showed signs of my branching interest in technoculture. Most of it is on speculative fiction: Ballard, Dick, Cronenberg, Baudrillard, Haraway, cyborgs, The X-Files, and the Dave Matthews Band. (Yes, the Dave Matthews Band. My first chapter is on Crash — the violent intersection of the desires of the human body and the fetishization of technology.) The final chapter of the dissertation is a how-to manual for setting up a computer classroom. Yes, I made some tenuous connections to the first part of the diss, but it really evinces the first official sign of my professional schizophrenia.

It’s also what got me a job in the first place.

At the time in English Studies, going computer was all the rage. At USF, we even had one computer classroom in English. During my last couple of years there, I was the Coordinator of that room; CPR-202. I pretty much had carte blanche to do what I wanted, as long as the room worked for those professors, TAs, and undergraduates using it. I installed Red Hat Linux on every machine to create the first Linux classroom that I had ever seen — and the last, now that I think about it. It was awesome. And it worked. And it got rid of Windoze. Happy day.

When I first got to Macon State, I continued to teach pretty much what I had been teaching at USF — “service courses”: World Literature 1, first-year composition, and the occasional CIT course, like New Media or Professional Communication. I love to teach World Literature 1 — the epic and tragedy are my jams. In fact, now that I sit here writing, I really can’t think of anything I enjoy more than teaching Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides. That’s probably why they started assigning me World Literature 2. It’s not that I don’t love Goethe, Dostoyevsky, and Kafka — they just aren’t what I studied as a graduate student, nor are they what I’m best at teaching.

As time passed, I taught fewer service courses — including first-year comp courses! — and less literature. I began to teach Media Criticism — though I had no official training (or much interest) in it — and other courses having more to do with technology and cultural studies, like Technology and the Creative Artist, Writing for Digital Media, and New Media every year. I like these courses, especially the latter. There’s something akin to my fascination with science fiction, I think. I do even include some futurism in the New Media course.

So, now that the Humanities Department has broken into the English Department and the Department of Media, Culture, and the Arts, I find myself as CIT Coordinator with a spring schedule that doesn’t include one literature class. So, not only am I not teaching English composition anymore, it seems that I’ll no longer be teaching literature.

I’m OK with this, for now. I like the way things are going, for now. This division doesn’t do much for the professional identity that I have been constructing over the past fifteen years, but I’ve never been opposed to mixing it up — of getting a good kick in my complacency.

So, I’m a Professor of English, but not really. I can live with that.

For now.

Maybe all that’s true? Why am I any more qualified to have opinions than any other citizen of Central Georgia? What makes me so special? Nothing. Maybe in a room full of Ph.D.s, I do have some respect and empathy, but should I expect the same in a classroom? On a street corner? Shouldn’t I pay as close attention to what the students think? After all, isn’t it really about them? They are the customers. They have paid to be in the class. Why should they have to listen to anything that they disagree with? What gives me the right to try to make them? I’m such a jerk.

It’s true, and it’s time that I admit it to myself and do something about it. It’s a big, stinky piece of humble pie that I finally have to choke down. Offense used to be, to me, a learning opportunity — something to really make me examine my attitudes and convictions. It’s the most difficult thing about education: that existential moment of understanding that comes from an idea that shakes you to the core. Frightening as hell. Now offense often seems to be grounds for complaint to the authorities, not for introspection.

Aren’t I just a functionary? I have facts to impart to the students, and isn’t that what knowledge is about? Facts don’t offend; they’re impartial, beyond contention. If people wanted opinions, they could turn on their favorite “news” channel or go to church. Is it the fact of my jerkiness that you hate? Or is it that my opinions don’t match your own?

In this current political climate, perhaps the best course of action is to remain silent or risk a fatwa, a witch hunt, a crusade, or a book burning. Yes, I have a right to say what I want — and I even have the qualifications. However, maybe right now and right here the prudent thing would be to keep my jerky mouth shut?

What would my classroom be like if I just stuck to the facts, Jack? Seriously. What are the facts in the study of literature? Context for sure. Plot. Oh, yes. I could point to all the zeugmas, synecdoches, and caesuras in a Neoclassical poem — all facts. What about textual interpretation? Ah, that’s tricky. Isn’t “interpretation” just another word for “opinion”? Better check those at the door. So literature turns into a quantifiable exercise of plot, context, and device?

What piece of literature does not in some way challenge conventional attitudes and beliefs? This is why I love what I do: it deals with all that human stuff that makes us who we are, for better or worse. It’s a mirror that shows all of our beauty and scars — us at our best and our worst. It challenges — kicks us in the throat and teases us with subtlety. It’s not the fact of plot, but the significance of it. Literature is the labyrinth, the puzzle of humanity. No other human endeavor is as important. (Shit, did I just write my opinion?)

I get so passionate in the classroom because I love what I do. I love what I read, and I want to hear what others think about it, too. Yet, my zeal is often mistaken for overbearing intimidation. My execrable opinion. Not for everyone, but a vocal few. I do care about you. I do.

And this is what makes me sad. I don’t know how to change. The only way I can be sure not to offend is to remain silent. Is that what this is about? Is that the prudent course? I do need to think about my job security, no? No employer wants to employ a jerk.

How do I challenge without offending? Is this even possible? For a better educator than myself, perhaps.

I don’t know how to temper the sharp edge of my personality other than to remain silent and smile. Who could object to that? How do I foster a classroom where people can disagree without becoming offended and turning off or going on the attack? Is that even possible these days? The classroom is where we should engage these ideas, not in an administrator’s office.

I’ll probably remain a jerk, but I just need to be a quieter one if I am to remain an educator. I guess that means this is my last blog entry, too.

I’m beaten down.

Well, the semester’s heading into mid-term time, and both of my upper level courses, New Media and 20th Cent. British Poetry and Prose, are taking their first exams this week. I just finished grading part one of the latter’s while my new-mediaers presently write away. My World Lit 2 class will have a two-part exam next week. I’m beginning to become a big fan of the exam and less of small papers and responses throughout the semester. I’m not sure of the pedagogy here, but it allows me to condense my grading.

My online World Lit 2 session course begins in a couple of weeks. I need to get on that syllabus.

I’ve been a bit testy lately. I think many of my colleagues think I’m a crank, especially those fellow committee members on the TRC. I teach New Media, as you will have gleaned from the first paragraph, so I’m pretty aware of the issues surrounding networked digital technologies. I won’t say I understand all of the consequences of being digital, but I do think that McLuhan was truly on to something when he wrote the “medium is the message.” McLuhan was concerned with the political ramifications of transparent technologies and how those can shape our reality. This is, in and of itself, not necessarily a bad thing; it’s the transparency that makes it insidious.

For example, if all you’re given to watch on teevee is, say, Jersey Shore, that’s bound to affect how you process reality — your values, what you think is important, your behavior. The more you watch it, the more it becomes normalized, as if that’s the natural way to view life. Stated another way: how can we critique something when is such a “natural” part of our lives?

The same goes for computer programs. If all you’re given is Internet Explorer, you might not ever question the use of it. You would be seeing the web through IE lenses, and never questioning that view. This is why the US government found M$ to be a monopoly, by the way.

So, this is the long way of saying that I’m frustrated with technology at MSC because I’m aware of the theory and research about media that many of my fellow committee members do not seem to be aware of. So, when I challenge the administration’s latest idea about making YouTube and Facebook inaccessible from campus, they can’t believe I’d have a problem with it. Interestingly, the network is super slow, according to YouTube (MSC is the yellow line):

Click to embiggen

While the rest of the world is decentralizing, this institution is trying to reign it all in. (You need a video? Use our proprietary Windoze media format. Need a social network? Use Vista!) And MSC is not the only one.

I guess I just wish someone would pay a modicum of attention. I have a Ph.D. for a reason. Wouldn’t they want the advice of the experts? (No, you need to keep your elitist ideas to yourself.) Maybe I don’t play politically enough, but I’m frustrated at that whole situation, too. Politics in the US is not about hashing it out, it’s about saying NO! I can’t believe that these people can sleep at night with a good conscience. Health care reform? NO! Education reform?NO! Campaign financing reform? NO! (unless it’s to give corporations more rights and power) Are we all just selfish pricks?

As I said: testy. I used to make it longer into the semester before getting like this.

Oh, and people are becoming even more aggressive on the road. Maybe it’s that I drive a Mini, but many truck and SUV drivers seem to think they can do anything they want to on the road — and most of said trucks and SUVs are either cammo-decked or clay-soiled. Yesterday, this truck-driving dude was next to me in the right lane waiting for the light to change. We both had cars in from of us, and he knew that the right lane was ending after the light. The light changes and he keeps right up with me, all the while inching over into my lane. I hold my course. (OK, I could have slowed down, but he was the one who had to merge, not me.) He continues scootching into my lane, trying to cut me off, and I lay on my horn. He doesn’t seem to care, but realizes he’s not getting in front of me. He pulls behind me with a violent jerk of the steering wheel and begins to ride my ass. I turn on my right blinker because Elizabeth Place is coming up, and make my turn. Of course, Road Rage follows me. I’m sure he has something manly he wants to do to me. Instead of turning right on Hines Terr to go home, I start to make a left at the same time this idiot tries to go around me on the left. He probably had a gun to show me. Fortunately, I drive a tiny, quick car, so I’m able to stay in front of Road Rage. He finally decides he doesn’t have the time or his one rational neuron fires, and he turns back toward Pierce.

This is the second time something like this has happened in so many months.

Am I too antagonistic? Testy. I’m ready for spring break. So are my students. What do you take to cure the testy?

Happy birthday, again, Cheryl. Many happy returns. (Well, maybe not to Bonefish.)

Yes, another semester has started with a bang. I have finally finished my course prep and posted my last syllabus online for a class that begins tonight. I even have my second session course’s syllabus finished. It’s an interesting semester: I didn’t get my usual New Media senior seminar, but I also didn’t get a Freshman composition course. I have three online classes and one traditional, in-class section of World Literature 2. Should be a good semester, teaching-wise. I’m particularly looking forward to what my students do in the Writing for Digital Media course. More on that, soon.

I’ll be travelling to New Orleans in April for the national PCA/ACA conference. I wrote a proposal for a paper on Poe’s “Ligeia” and Lem’s Solaris. The abstract was crap, but I have a bit of time to tease it out. I can’t wait to get back to NOLA; it’s been too long, and since before Katrina. I’m hoping that A can go with me and that Kip will meet me there for a couple of days.

I’ve also been invited to read AP literature exams in early June. Since it’s early June, I’ll be able to go. It will be in Louisville, KY for a week. It pays a pretty good stipend, so I might be able to get away with teaching only one class in May. We’ll see. I’m still on-track to teach in London beginning at the end of June. If you’re interested in going with me, there’s still time to sign up.

Finally, I’m trying to get healthy again by eating correctly and exercising regularly. This is difficult, but so far I’m doing OK. Hopefully I’ll notice a difference soon.

Should be an interesting year…