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.

A large chunk of my holiday was spent in geek mode. Yes, I partook of holiday spirits, exercised a bit, and relaxed — but I needed to do some pretty significant updates to some outdated servers that I’m responsible for on campus. One, I choose to run, and the other houses three pretty important sites. Here’s what I did.

A couple of years after I got to MSC, the Humanities Division got an Apple Xserve. We had several tasks for it: application sharing, file sharing, project storage, and a web server. It would support our Mac classroom, M-124. I remember getting that sweet piece of equipment; I liked it so much, I even kept it in my office for a while so I could pretend like I could feel the power of those dual G5 processors. I think this was 2004.

Well, since then, a lot has changed. There’s no longer a Humanities Division, but a Department of Media, Culture & the Arts and an English Department. I stayed with the former. I have been tenured, we have a new president, and we just got a new room full of iMacs — among other things. One thing that hasn’t changed: that Xserve is still around; however, it’s now obsolete. The last upgrade I was able to do to it was Leopard, and it will not run anything more recent from Apple. I began to run into problems with PHP and MySQL requirements on Moodle — Apple was no longer updating those in Leopard. Yes, I could have reverted to some command-line juju, but one of the reasons you get a server from Apple is that it has a purty GUI for all that admin stuff. Well, I learned my lesson.

When it comes to servers, there’s only one OS for me: Linux. And there’s only one flavor I eat: Debian. Oh, I’ve tried others, and some are pretty tasty, but like a good slice of cheese pizza, there’s just something that calls you back to the simplicity  – the minimalism of that perfect recipe. Plus, Debian is one of the only ones left that supports the now very obsolete PowerPC architecture. Man, when Apple decides to obsolete something, they do not mess around.

By this time, I’m a pretty experienced system administrator. If I don’t know how to do something, those better then I have already solved the problem and posted somewhere on the Interwebs. I really love the open-source community. When it came time to transfer, I was already prepared. My daily archives were ready on a backup disk, so I didn’t really need to do much else before the transfer. Since the Xserve has three drives, I just took the one out that had my Leopard Server install on it, and replaced it with a blank.

Debian installed with no problems whatever. Period. The server was up and running within twenty minutes with sshd ready for my work from home that night.

With my soft pants on and a Makers Mark on the desk, I set up the server that evening.

Apache

The first thing I needed to do was set up my LAMP server. The L(inux) part was done; that just left the AMP. I had done this many times, but this install would be different. Instead of one web site, I was running four, so I needed a configuration that could do this. I found this tutorial by Sam Kleinman. I didn’t need the scripting, so I skipped that section. WordPress needs the rewrite module, so that was the only extra module I activated. I got my idea for filesystem organization from this article by Steve Kemp.

The best part of this new process was Sam’s last advice on installing a multi-processing module. Basically, this lets users run their own Apache instances. This is a life-saver for upgrading both WordPress and Moodle, since the Web server is essentially running under the user account’s permissions.

Next, I just populated the accounts with the data from the most recent backups.

WordPress

There’s not much to say here, really. I installed the latest version of WordPress, added my database file, and uploaded my themes and plugins folders. The hardest part of installing WP is getting the permalinks working, but since I added the rewrite module to Apache and configured the preferences file already, they just worked.

Moodle

Moodle presented a bit more of a challenge because we had been running an old version. So not only were we moving servers, I had a significant update to the new version of Moodle. I initially installed a fresh version of Moodle using their new “git” install. Where has this been all my life? Git not only makes installs easier, but makes periodic updates significantly easier. Bravo!

Triggering the install from a web browser, I made sure I had all the modules installed that I needed for the new version. I did have to install a few, but Aptitude made this easy — another reason I like Debian. Once I was sure the server was ready for Moodle, I added my old preferences that pointed to the database file. It took some time, but I was able to upgrade to the new version (2.2) in about thirty minutes.

There are still some difficulties with the new version of Moodle, but these are just upgrading woes — they have nothing to do with the server. After installing, I did notice that Moodle wanted me to migrate my database from MyISAM to InnoBD. I followed the instructions in a tutorial that I can’t find now. It wasn’t a bad process, albeit a bit anxiety-inducing. It took a while because my database was big. After all, we have been using Moodle for at least six years.

Finally, I set up cron to trigger all my Moodle business every half-hour.

Tweaking

The rest was setting up a backup plan with an extra drive and cron. I even shared some ssh keys with my other server to do some remote daily backups. You can never bee too careful.

Finally, I discovered the php-apc performance tuner. It really made a difference on my server. For some reason, Xcache was already installed, but wasn’t helping. I ditched that and installed php-apc for a pretty significant difference. Follow Francois Planque’s tutorial for some more info and a way to measure your performance.

In all, a partial holiday well spent. Now, to get to that essay I need to write…

What struck me first is Daisey’s description of himself as an Apple Fanboy. Most of how he describes himself Geeking out to Apple fan sites and the loving attentions he bestows on his Apple hardware reminds me much of myself. However, I posit, perhaps naively, that I can have a critical eye toward Apple — this position does not mean that I don’t own most of their gadgets.

Yet, after listening to Daisey’s experiences in Shenzhen and Foxconn City, any Westerner with a conscience would have to question his or her use of gadgets that negatively affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of impoverished Chinese citizens — some likely underaged. Is an iPad or iPhone so important to my life that I’m willing to condone what amounts to slavery in the twenty-first century?

At least that’s what I thought after listening to part one of the program. After Daisey’s 40-minute narrative, I found myself still in my car; I had made it home, turned off the engine, and was sitting in a dark garage. I went inside to listen to act two.

This part provides a step back from Dasiey’s narrative — some analysis and fact checking. While there were some mitigating perspectives and evidence, the fact still remains that our tech that has become so ingrained in our lives is made in sweatshops.

Why is this the case? Really? Why don’t we make our own fetishized tech right here in the US? I know it would be more expensive — our gadgets would likely double in cost — but isn’t that the right thing to do? Should we, as one of the commentators suggests, just accept the grim realities for Foxconn workers as the growing pains of a nascent capitalist economy?

Is it really that easy?

The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. . . . Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough. . .
–John Adams

I know I’m a few days late for New Year’s resolutions, but the spring semester beginning tomorrow seems more like a point of a new beginning than an arbitrary day on a calendar. So, with that, I propose the following as resolutions.

I don’t really have much to add to the last two times I attempted such an exercise. They are very similar, but perhaps with a slightly different emphasis.

That’s about it.

In many ways, 2011 was a trying year. Three deaths affected me in different ways — Apollo, Steve Jobs, and Christopher Hitchens. Each died of cancer — the latter of the same pernicious variety that killed my cousin Dale Knack. McEwan’s tribute to Hitchens was both beautiful and difficult; we know the latter is what death is, but what makes it beautiful? Death is not beautiful — only life. It takes a good life to make death less dreadful. As Hemingway said: “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

I finally watched the HBO miniseries John Adams over the break, and the last episode of this series illustrates this point. It is a difficult episode to watch. Throughout the series, Adams — and those around him — age. Aging in the late-eithteenth, early-nineteenth centuries was much more noticeable — especially the teeth. I remember reading that George Washington suffered his whole life from bad teeth, and that likely he had not a one left when he became president. In fact, even some of his portraits — like Gilbert Stuart’s — show his swollen mouth and the obvious discomfort he must have endured much of his life. This seems an apt metaphor for life at this time.

One of the problems with biographies is you know how they all end. The final episode, “Peacefield,” is about not only Adams’ death, but the deaths of those most dear to him, especially his wife Abigail’s and Thomas Jefferson’s. Adams lived a long life — he was nearly 91 when he died — and he had been an observer and participant in the birth of the US. OK, this is getting morbid; I’ll have more to say about Adams in a future post.

2011 was great in many ways. I taught in London in the summer again, and Autumn and I traveled to Greece. Fantastic. I am healthy and happy. I have a wife who loves me — I’m still trying to figure out my luck there. My family and I are closer than we have been in recent years, and I hope that trend continues.

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope 2012 is even better.

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.

I think we were better together, but during the summer of 2010, we were divided arbitrarily and for political reasons. Or maybe practical ones? I’m not sure, as I was never told exactly why. I does make sense to have an English Department, but what was left over does not. We decided on Media, Culture & the Arts as a name for: several English faculty, Art, Music, Theatre, Communication, and Foreign Language. What is that? Perhaps we should have called ourselves the Department of Leftovers.

This morning, I certainly feel that way.

There are some positives about this split. I think we were able to revitalize the CIT degree, even changing the name to NMAC. I didn’t get the program I wanted, but my colleagues and I came up with something good. The Art program has gained a new life with new faculty. IDS is prospering, though I’m afraid at what Monica’s move will mean. We face other challenges as an ad hoc department — ones I hope we’ll overcome.

Still, I will miss my other friends and colleagues, particularly Heather, Laura, Amy, and Nancy. I know they’re upstairs, but while the physical distance is spanned by a flight of stairs, the figurative distance is further, and will likely grow.

However, I do hope this physical move doesn’t widen the gap further. I think it will. I was hoping to work with the English folks to compose and propose a graduate degree, but after talking with a few people, I don’t think the powers that be would look favorably on this right now. I’m not sure why. It really seems that someone wants the gap to remain wide and uncrossable.

I, too, wonder at my fate. I word for a decade to earn a Ph.D. in English with concentrations in modern and postmodern literature, the epic genre, and computer-assisten pedagogy. It appears as if I’ll never get to teach a literature class again. Yes, there are the left-over humanities classes, but I wonder at my capacity both officially and intellectually to teach those. I have been for a couple of semesters now, and the prep is brutal. I do like that challenge, but coupled with increasing administrative responsibilities, I’m, well . . . not feeling very grounded. I don’t think I’m alone.

Losing the physical proximity of my trusted colleagues has just made this all the more real. Someone convince me this is a good thing.

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

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members. That our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors. That a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people, and the Earth, and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.

We come to you at a time when corporations — which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality — run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here as is our right to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in workplaces based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is, itself, a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut worker’s health care and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams, but look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products, endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives, or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully kept people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners, even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

To the people of the world, We, the New York City general assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power. Exercise your right to peaceably assemble, occupy public space, create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone. To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was a fat kid. Part of this had to do with the fact of the television: it was always more entertaining to me than sweating in the Florida sun with the other kids in Shadybrook Village. It also had to do with what I ate. I remember a childhood of McDonald’s and other dubious fast food. Part of this was satisfying the dietary cravings of two brothers caught in the vicissitudes of their parents’ divorce — the one who bought hamburgers and fries would trump the other’s meatloaf and green beans and curry the favor of the children. So, we ate out a lot, and nutrition was never really emphasized.

Even in sixth grade, when a “husky” Jerry joined Harllee Middle School’s Nutrition Club, I wasn’t taught about nutrition more than I was encouraged to limit my intake. I may be misremembering our weekly meetings — where a non-too-pleased Mr. Harrison would have to let one of his trumpet players miss first period to hang out with the other fatties in the lunch room — but I think it was more about fraternity and calorie counting than about actual health education.

This was the beginning of a cycle of gain and loss throughout high school, college, and graduate school. I never remember losing weight to be particularly difficult: remembering the lessons of Nutrition Club, I made up my mind to limit my intake. I’d still eat the pepperoni pizza; I would just eat less until I stripped off the excess pounds. Easy. And yes, growing helped, too.

It wasn’t until near the end of graduate school when I was at my heaviest — nearly 220 pounds — that I actually educated myself about food. I was essentially a vegan for about five years, and I maintained a constant weight of 165 pounds. Diets do not work; you have to change what you eat. If you don’t want to be fat, you must stop eating fat. Ah, Mrs. Jones’ advice finally makes sense. It only took me 25 years to get it. As long as I was on my own, I ate right and stayed thin.

However, there is another factor to food: social pressures. When I was single and lived with my two cats, I could determine what I ate and safely ignore any outside influences trying to steer me wrong. However, as soon as eating becomes social, the bad habits reassert themselves beaded on pressures both subtle and overt. If you try to eat correctly around others who are not, you make them feel bad about themselves. And instead of seeing the problem with themselves, they lash out at me. Yes, I can often stay strong, but ultimately this pressure wears me down and I just give in and eat the fried chicken just so I don’t have to hear it. How many other things in our lives can we say that about?

So, when it’s time to eat, I try to eat right: no added fat; no animal products; no overly processed foods. I do not worry about counting calories or portion sizes. If you’re eating right, these things don’t matter. However, around others, I often give in. This is indicative of the life of a happily married forty-something.

One thing I can say is that I have given up McDonald’s for good. That’s just something I cannot be.

Again, I want to be clear: I’m proud of all my students’ work this summer, and the selection below is just a taste of some overall good work. To see them all, check out the links to their photo blogs for the course. The featured portfolios are in no particular order.

Amy Anderson’s final portfolio was a surprise. Amy’s got such an easy-going personality, often I thought she was bored with the class, or just asleep. Yet, I think the whole class was quite impressed with her portfolio. It had the most cohesive theme of them all, based on a street photography approach. She calls it “Creeping through the Lens,” and while I’m not sure how the word “creeping” became associated in both of my classes with street photography, her work exceeds the expectations of her title. My favorite of the selections is her “Here’s Waldo,” featured in my selections below. Not only is it a great portrait, it captures some of the quirkiness of life in England.

Kassie Bettis’ work was also featured by me early on — and her sister looks a lot like her. Her work is thoughtful and understated, like Kassie herself. There’s a sense of the hidden there; her subjects often frame her images, and offer a tentative view into her world caught on film. Kassie also seemed to be everyone’s favorite subject for course portraits. Below, I use her image “A Nonchalant Attitude” as a strong representation of her work. The contrast between her flowery shoes and the stolid stonehenge speaks of the contrast between a harder past and a brighter present.

Many of the students played with perspective and camera placement to great effect — e.g. Sarah Gunnels’ work — and this might be Emily Moss‘ trademark. Her portrait “Movement” is not only excellently lit, but provides a great view of a common place for Londoners. Emily has a nice grasp of space and place in her portfolio, and each of her photos shows a unique perspective coupled with a similarly unique atmosphere.

One of my most consistent photographers this summer has been Brandi Gaines, but this is not surprising since her undergraduate degree is in fine art. Brandi’s submission for the Portrait Gallery assignment is not included in her final portfolio, but I include it below as a very strong image inspired by Sarah Lucas’s self portraits. Brandi is a careful photographer, and she does not display just any image. Her eye is critical and deliberate, but she has no hint of arrogance. She is always ready to find a new inspiration, and I have enjoyed her work over the last few weeks.

As I said above, this is only a sample. To view all the students’ portfolios, see the list in LitMUSE.