Literature
- The Problem
The problem with blogs is that you feel like you've got to keep them updated somewhat regularly?at least that's how I feel. I've always tried to keep a flexibly disciplined schedule when it comes to posting on my blog: I aim for two times...
- Book Work
I have not been posting to my blog as regularly these days, as I'm busy completing my book The Textual Life of Airports. My book explores how airports appear in literature and culture, with an eye toward the interpretive demands made on passengers,...
- Some Comments On The Curiosity Of Blogs
Stanley Fish's latest NY Times blog post "Does Curiosity Kill More Than the Cat?" has provoked 399 comments as of this morning (17 Sep). Fish basically presents 'curiosity' as a vice that when given a "positive twist" morphs into "the scientific...
- Posts Instead Of Papers
When I consider using blogs to teaching literature/writing, I am not simply talking about transposing the forms (and formalities) of syllabi, essays, rubrics, etc. onto an electronic medium. No, I am talking about rethinking what it means to write?what...
- On The Possibility Of Literature Blogs
In a discussion on teaching "Introduction to Literature" courses at UC Davis, two colleagues and I speculated about the possibility of using blogs for the entire writing content of the course. Could this be done? Here is how it might look: Each student...
Literature
On revisions and archives
I'm in my office right now trying to revise a piece of writing. I have revised this particular essay at least 30 times; its scope has significantly changed, and parts of the earlier drafts are completely gone. Blogs are funny because you don't ever really revise your postings, or at least it's not what the logic of archiving advocates. The blog archives itself, and promotes new postings rather than revisions of old postings. On the other hand, with essays or stories or poems it's all we do: revise and revise and revise until the textual object is 'done'?but it's always a 'done' in scare-quotes. We know that we could never really truly be DONE. Blogs are dated, and thus literally done when the date changes. This seems to be almost an epiphany, like the end of James Joyce's "Araby": Gazing into the blog I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my postings burned with anguish and archive fever.
(Curiously, I have returned to this posting and edited it a little; I also revised "Moving Rocks" days after it was initially posted.)
(Curiously, I have returned to this posting and edited it a little; I also revised "Moving Rocks" days after it was initially posted.)
- The Problem
The problem with blogs is that you feel like you've got to keep them updated somewhat regularly?at least that's how I feel. I've always tried to keep a flexibly disciplined schedule when it comes to posting on my blog: I aim for two times...
- Book Work
I have not been posting to my blog as regularly these days, as I'm busy completing my book The Textual Life of Airports. My book explores how airports appear in literature and culture, with an eye toward the interpretive demands made on passengers,...
- Some Comments On The Curiosity Of Blogs
Stanley Fish's latest NY Times blog post "Does Curiosity Kill More Than the Cat?" has provoked 399 comments as of this morning (17 Sep). Fish basically presents 'curiosity' as a vice that when given a "positive twist" morphs into "the scientific...
- Posts Instead Of Papers
When I consider using blogs to teaching literature/writing, I am not simply talking about transposing the forms (and formalities) of syllabi, essays, rubrics, etc. onto an electronic medium. No, I am talking about rethinking what it means to write?what...
- On The Possibility Of Literature Blogs
In a discussion on teaching "Introduction to Literature" courses at UC Davis, two colleagues and I speculated about the possibility of using blogs for the entire writing content of the course. Could this be done? Here is how it might look: Each student...