Third term: one step closer to the bling

I’m beginning my third term at OSU today, and although I still prefer the semester schedule I had as an undergrad at Northern Michigan University, I’m happy to be moving on to new classes right now. My courses last term were challenging in very different ways — I learned a lot, but as I’ve said before, I was exhausted at the end of the term. Spring break has been pretty refreshing.

Maybe I’ll post a longer entry about my coursework, but after 2 hours of Sunday night basketball, I’m tired, so I’ll make this short. Oh, one quick recommendation for my friends looking into graduate programs right now: be sure to talk to the students in the program before you commit; don’t simply talk with the graduate program director, the graduate school, department head, and/or professors. They’re important to talk with, of course, but it’s the students who really know the program. And once you’re at the school, be advised on coursework by both your main advisor and multiple second-year students in your program. Just get some quick feedback from several people. (I have a W on my transcript because I failed to do this — which isn’t a big deal, in my opinion.)

Anyway. Two main courses this term: ENG 480/580, The Making of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and ENG 526, Studies in the Age of Chaucer. I’m especially excited about the Hawthorne class because the professor is one of the best in the department, a fantastic teacher I was fortunate to meet early last fall; he participated in a couple of WIC program seminars last term, and I know that pedagogy and an engaging classroom are very important to him. While I’m a little cool toward Chaucer, I really like the professor for that class, too, and I have several good friends in both courses. I’m sure that both will be challenging enough, but I doubt they’ll cause too many sleepless nights this spring.

(Ack, this feels like a boring post. Maybe I won't write a longer one about my coursework!)

The final class is a one-credit practicum that prepares us to teach the business writing course next year, should we wish to do that. I’m not sure if I’ll have the time to teach it, or if the department would want me to, but I suppose the one-credit course can’t hurt. How that course’s curriculum is designed and taught is interesting to me, anyway — and I guess I’ll be studying curricula and helping to design classes for a long time. Somewhere. Because there’s big money in it. And that’s what I’m after. Bling bling. (ideophone)

Traffic stop #32

This requires a lot of explanation, I know. How does a normally responsible, well-educated (if student loans are any indication) person get stopped by the police 32 times in 11 years? And why would he count the stops?

I grew up in a small town, Crystal Falls, where the local police had little to do, and they frequently stopped high school students to check for alcohol and such. I know that sounds all too typical, but really, I was pulled over once when I was going 32 in a 35. It was late, and I was driving my beat-up ’79 Impala through town. The city officer on duty nearly rolled his SUV as he turned around to pull me over, and as he walked up and I took my hood off of my head, he realized he knew me. In fact, his two sons attended the school district’s daycare I worked at, and I helped coach them in t-ball. The officer was completely apologetic and made some excuse about how the radar gun sometimes picks up “the fan in the car” and it clocked me at 52 m.p.h.

That’s just one example. I was pulled over seven times in my first six months of driving, and I’ve always kept the running total in the back of my head. Now it’s a running joke with my friends. I think I’ve been ticketed for speeding three times, and I admit that I drive over the speed limit quite a bit — never too fast for conditions, though. I think I’m a good driver, a sensible person.

Tonight, my friend Pete and I went to the Darkside Cinema to see “The Band’s Visit,” a great film about an Egyptian Police band that gets stranded in Israel for a night before a scheduled performance there. It’s a sad film with fantastic lonely characters, and I recommend it. When we left, I drove about two blocks when an officer pulled me over, and Pete snickered about how I can get pulled over even when I’m driving perfectly. Apparently, a headlight went out tonight; it was fine last night. So the officer was brief and nice about it, and she let me leave without a ticket or much fuss at all.

Sometimes I have to talk quickly — I think I’ve maneuvered my way out of several tickets. For example, last Saturday I was stopped by a Benton County sheriff deputy on the motorcycle I had just purchased (more on that some other time). I had no insurance, the bike wasn’t registered yet, and it had an expired Washington license plate on it. I knew I had messed up this time and was bracing myself for a big fine and bike impoundment. I started talking right away about how I just got the bike off the truck and was having carb problems, how I was just a mile from home and heading back that way, how I had just received my temporary motorcycle license (yes, this one’s paper and they mail me a new one in a week). All true, but nevertheless, I wasn’t on the road legally. A minute later, the officer — a guy my age — was talking to me about his old bikes and what I might want to look at with my bike. He let me go and wished me luck. I really thought I was in trouble. I guess this particular officer was in a good mood.

Well, that’s enough about this. It’s all humorous to me and pretty ridiculous because (knock on wood) I’ve avoided some major accidents by being a defensive driver, and my insurance company likes me. Tomorrow I will fix my headlight, but if you see blue and red lights flashing behind a little black car in Corvallis, or on I-5, wave and don’t worry — I’m probably just discussing something minor with a local law enforcement agent, perhaps a taillight, or the OSU parking permit that’s potentially impeding my vision as it hangs from my rearview mirror.

(Note for further discussion: unbelievably high concentrations of police in relatively small academic communities like Corvallis and Marquette. Right? Or is it just me? I may be incapable of objectivity!)

Obama in Oregon, vol. 1

Obama got the jump on Hillary in Oregon by visiting the state Friday and Saturday, and I decided to drive to Eugene and get in line. Unfortunately, we didn't get to hear his full address--just a 10-minute talk with about 5,000 other people behind McArthur Court at the University of Oregon. One friend said she waited 6 hours and the doors to McArthur Court closed when they were 10 feet away. I was in line for about 2 hours, and didn't even get around the block to see the front of the building.

He gave a Friday morning speech in Portland, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson appeared with him and endorsed Obama publicly for the first time--a nice endorsement, considering most Latino voters are supporting Hillary. From Portland, he traveled to speak in Salem, and then made an unannounced stop in Corvallis, ordering pizzas at American Dream Pizza, right across from the downtown apartment building where a couple of my friends live. I guess a couple of friends scrambled over, but only saw the bus pulling away. (Aside: American Dream is my favorite pizza place in Corvallis, but when you order a slice late at night in the Crow Bar behind the dining area, they just kind of lump some toppings on cheese pizza that has been warming for awhile. But, hey, it's only $2.50.) Friday night was the Eugene rally, and I heard that Obama made a stop in Medford on Saturday, too.

Below is a photo I snapped as Barack was shaking hands with people along the barrier. He took his time and went all around the front row of the crowd, and I was nearly within handshake reach as I snuck forward right after this photo. Great crowd, very diverse. I think he will win in Oregon, but maybe not by much. (There's sure to be a lot of cable news hyperactivity between now and then that, unfortunately, may sway some voters for trivial reasons, but I'm fairly confident that Obama will take our state.) April 29 is the last day to register to vote in time for the Democratic Primary in Oregon.

Upcoming Democratic primaries are:

April 22: Pennsylvania
May 6: Indiana, North Carolina
May 13: Nebraska, West Virginia
May 20: Oregon, Kentucky
June 3: Montana, South Dakota

So, Obama is sure to be back in Oregon before May 20, and I will probably devote a bit more time to standing in line when the weather is warmer. Or, I'll follow his bus and take a photo for the blog, at least.

Like when you fall across the finish line in 8th place

At 4:30 today, I drove my final paper to my professor's house and dropped it off. Term over. Now I'm celebrating by watching the Houston Rockets (on a 22-game winning streak!) play the best team in the East, the Celtics. Considering the circumstances, there's absolutely nothing I'd rather be doing right now.

I don't know what's up with my immune system, but it has really failed me lately. I began this term sick with the flu, and I fell sick again on Saturday. Three days later I'm finally able to get into library and quickly thumb through a copy of Aristotle's Politics, only to realize it doesn't address what I expect, and it's not the impressive work I anticipated. But, it did factor into the conclusion of my paper. (Yeah, for better or worse, I made it fit.) Anyway, the truth is, I do know why I got sick again: I didn't sleep well this term, didn't eat well, couldn't exercise the way I usually do--my overall health was bad, and considering that my prof said I looked green (see last post), it's no wonder I ended up in bed for two days.

On the bright side, I passed my motorcycle certification test on Sunday, so as soon as I stop at the DMV, I have the official license to wear leather chaps. Kidding--nobody wants that. The certification course was a combined 19 hours this weekend, more than half of which was spent on a bike, and I'm sure it contributed to my sickness. No regrets, though; on Thursday I drive to a small town in Washington to (possibly) buy a 1980 Honda CB750, and old cafe-style racer. (Aside: the certification course instructor was one of the coolest people I've ever met, a nonfiction writer whose wife is a poetry professor at OSU.)

So, break begins. And although I have so much planned for the next two weeks that it won't be relaxing, it will be fun. I'm going to return to this game now, and then I might watch "No Country for Old Men," which I picked up as I was buying a new battery for my dead car Saturday night. Yes, I've staggered to the end, but the term is over. Hoo-rah, hoo-ray.

Beirut - Nantes (For a green day)

Today, one of my professors (I work with her) told me I don't look well--green--"like no one should really look in good health." Or something like that. But rather than try to explain or identify all the things that make me green, I came home and watched this video, which is so damn excellent that you can't help but feel a bit better after watching it. So, enjoy.

Parking Lot Press Release (Parenthetical Version)

My friends who have been around our apartment recently may recall the early-'70s Ford pickup truck that sits half in our lot and half in the grass of the neighbor's yard. Big news on this! After nearly backing into the truck two or three times, I mentioned the truck to an employee of our management company as she was cleaning the apartment next door last week (girls next door have moved out, so if anyone needs a nice two-bedroom, two-story apartment for less than $700 a month, give me a call). Well, this woman said the truck would be given a few days to be moved following a warning, then towed. Today, behold, an orange sticker is on the window, and I anticipate that the truck will be towed soon! If I witness this, I will drink a beer and toast to the tow truck driver as he hooks it up!

And surely you have heard me mention the infamous, scraggly black cat that was regularly sleeping on the warm hoods of our cars in November and December. Well, after I spoke with the lone animal control officer for the Corvallis Police Department (in light of this cat apparently using the bushes next to Josh's car as a litter box--complete with all the usual accompanying scents), the cat disappeared. Yes, she (and we know it's a she because she was seen mating in the parking lot 4 doors down one day) seems to have fled. No surprise, though, I did see her last week and slowly drove toward her with my car to see where she would run to for protection (I had hoped she would not run below our kitchen; she went to the neighbor's yard).

Just last month, the managers painted apartment numbers on the parking spots, so you're welcome to park in any spot that's open and unpainted, should you stop by.

And finally, I took notice of what a nice job the football player's girlfriend (the one with the shiny Civic) has done with their place by planting some flowers out front, and I'm inspired to do some gardening out back in the spring.

That's the latest news on our parking lot. And since only Josh will be reading this, I trust that the audience has been fully engaged.

Gates and The Signifying Monkey

For the sake of throwing something up here, below are my notes for my presentation tom...today--the presentation I have to give in less than 6 hours! Oh how I need this term to end.

Anyway, I really would like to read Gates's entire book. It reminded me of some great conversations I had with my friend Yonika as an undergraduate. I'm sure I've got a lot more to say on this, but not at 2:47 a.m.

***

Henry Louis Gates Jr. (b. 1950—currently Professor/Program Director at Harvard)
“The Signifying Monkey and the Language of Signifyin(g): Rhetorical Difference and the Orders of Meaning” Taken from The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (New York, 1988)

This particular work by Gates is significant not only in enriching our understanding of Black English, but it “has important implications for the development of rhetorical theory because it suggests that Black English is a fertile field for studying the ideological and epistemological powers of rhetoric conceived as a general theory of language” (1544).

The features of the black dialect of English have long been studied and have been found to be grammatical and a dialect as much as Standard English is a dialect, “albeit a socially privileged one” (1544).

Bizzell and Herzberg point out that “language and culture are inseparable, and though it is common practice to forget the cultural forces at work in descriptions of Standard English—that is, white English—it is impossible to forget, when examining the development of Black English, the often agonized relationship between white people and black people in the United States” (1544).

B&H note three settings for speech interactions in black communities: 1. The church, where speaking includes both sermons and responses by congregants; 2. The street, where talk is an interaction between equals; 3. The home, where talk is dominated by the mother. (1545)

“A distinct feature between black rhetoric and what we might call white rhetoric is the typical relationship between speaker and audience. In most white speech interactions, as in traditional classical rhetoric, the speaker speaks and the audience listens; in black speech interactions, the audience responds almost constantly, with set responses, encouragement, suggestions, and nonverbal signals. … Black discourse is…highly ‘dialogic.’” (1546)

Given this information, it wasn’t a surprise when I found out that the film “Hustle and Flow” (seen here) won the Audience Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

B&H say “the street” is the scene for the most complex conversation-performance exchanges, with three main purposes: exchange information; enact social relationships of friendship, kinship, and business; and to establish the speaker’s social status (1546). I might say the “street” is any social setting where verbal play can create solidarity and competitiveness. (See: the basketball courts at Dixon. Good times.)

Forms of discourse are more closely related in black speech than in white; in other words, conversation and formal speeches are more similar in black speech, whereas they are more distinct in white speeches. (This makes sense, of course, considering the more dialogic nature of Black English in general.)

Important to note that tropes are artful substitutions of one term for another for rhetorical effect—as defined by Quintilian. For Gates, Signifyin(g) is the ultimate trope. Signifying is the “general term for several forms of persuasion, insult, boasting, or lying, all by innuendo or indirection…may be verbal, in prose, or verse, or nonverbal, using gesture. …sounding…[is] direct insult, boast, or lie” (1547—list)

“A trope is, literally, a turn. In traditional rhetoric, tropes turn words away from their ‘literal’ meaning to a metaphorical one” (1549).

Some verbal tropes:
Signifying
Playing the dozens (yo mama)
Any jargon (spit, chronic, 6-4, and on and on)
Meaning reversal (“my nigga” is a hotly debated one)
Hyperbole

Nonverbal:
pitch
emphasis
marking (spelling out blood with hands; peace signs; c-walk)

Often these insults can be playful—occasionally they may create tension.

“And finally, in a double bind that undercuts the self-image of black men, the official standards of the community may characterize the whole assemblage of street forms and tropes as adolescent—or at least rude” (1549). Many concerned leaders (black leaders) in black communities fight against street forms and tropes, trying to clean up the language and the images of what they think is a flawed youth culture.

Sociolinguists have done extensive work showing that Black English is not merely incorrect Standard English—they’ve explored the “background not only of African languages but also of tribal culture and social structures, myths, and music.” By studying community behaviors, Gates studies not only linguistics but rhetoric, and “his analysis is located at a critical juncture of culture, linguistic operation, social interaction, and political marginality. Gates is forced to be inclusive, to see rhetoric as the connective force and to see tropes as cognitive and epistemic forms of language. Here, rhetoric means daily speech as a form of action” (1549).

“Gates notes that signifying, the act of linguistic misdirection, ironically redirects the white word for the passive act of representation. Black rhetoric seems to say (as modern literary and rhetorical theory says) that representing meaning is not passive, that it is the greatest trickery of all” (1550).

From The Signifying Monkey:

“’Signification,” in standard English, denotes the meaning that a term conveys, or is intended to convey. It is a fundamental term in the standard English semantic order. …By supplanting the received term’s associated concept, the black vernacular tradition created a homonymic pun of the profoundest sort, thereby making its sense of difference from the rest of the English community of speakers.

“To revise the received sign … is to critique the nature of (white) meaning itself, to challenge through a literal critique of the sign the meaning of meaning. What did/do black people signify in a society in which they were intentionally introduced as the subjugated, as the enslaved cipher? Nothing on the x axis of white signification, and everything on the y axis of blackness” (1553).

“It would be erroneous even to suggest that a concept can be erased from its relation to a signifier. … “All homonyms depend on the absent presence of received concepts associated with a signifier” (1554).

“Whereas signification depends for order and coherence on the exclusion of unconscious associations which any given word yields at any given time, Signification (black replacement of meaning) luxuriates in the inclusion of the free play of these associative rhetorical and semantic relations. Lacan calls these vertically suspended associations ‘a whole articulation of relevant contexts,’ by which he means all of the associations that a signifier carries from other contexts, which must be deleted, ignored, or censored ‘for this signifier to be lined up with a signified to produce a specific meaning.’ Everything that must be excluded for meaning to remain coherent and linear comes to bear in the process of Signifyin(g).”

“Signifyin(g), in Lacan’s sense, is the Other of discourse; but it also constitutes the black Other’s discourse as its rhetoric. Ironically, rather than a proclamation of emancipation from the white person’s standard English, the symbiotic relationship between the black and white, between the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes, between black vernacular discours and standard English discourse, is underscored here, and signified, by the vertiginous relationship between the terms signification (standard) and Signification (black), each of which is dependent on the other. We can, then, think of American discourse as both the opposition between and the ironic identity of the movement, the very vertigo, that we encounter in a mental shift between the two terms.”

Gary Saul Morson on Bakhtin: “The audience of a double-voiced word is therefore meant to hear both a version of the original utterance as the embodiment of its speaker’s point of view (or ‘semantic position’) and the second speaker’s evaluation of that utterance for a different point of view. I find it helpful to picture a double-voiced word as a special sort of palimpsest in which the uppermost inscription is a commentary on the one beneath it, which the reader (or audience) can know only by reading through the commentary that obscures in the very process of evaluating.”

“The motivated troping effect of the disruption of the semantic orientation of signification by the black vernacular depends on the homonymic relation of the white term to the black. The sign, in other words, has been demonstrated to be mutable” (1556).

Talking points on research

I’d like to explain part of what led me to create this blog, which is the need for me to work through some potential angles for research and, with any luck, receive feedback and share ideas around these topics. As my friends know (and is anyone else even reading?!), I’m studying rhetoric and composition at Oregon State University, and it’s time that I start to focus on my thesis project.

A few of my colleagues studying rhetoric and composition have created research blogs, and when one was e-mailed by Nancy Sommers last term, I was really impressed by the potential for communication within the blogosphere. Sommers is the Director of Harvard’s Expository Writing Program, and reading her article “Between the Drafts” (CCC 43 (1992): 23-31) was a moment of particular inspiration during my first term here, Fall 2007. While I don’t expect Harvard scholars to be contacting me because I created a blog, I do hope that people will pass along some ideas, questions, and insights.

More recently, I’ve been studying Classical rhetoric. Well, to be honest, I’ve really just browsed the surface of rhetoric in a class on the rhetorical tradition and the history of writing instruction. My research for this course has involved Classical rhetoric’s role in pedagogy today, and I am exploring how a reemergence of Classical (Greek, Roman) practices in secondary education and first-year composition courses might have positive affects on civic engagement. I think there is room within curricula for more study of Classical rhetoric, and it could lead to more community involvement, greater knowledge of state and national politics, familiarity with legislative processes, and effective critical analysis of the positions taken by elected leaders. A better world, right? Well, for the moment, it’s making sense on paper. I feel like this could be the starting point for my thesis, but I’m still trying to focus my approach. Two key essays have guided my research so far: Carolyn R. Miller’s “The Polis as Rhetorical Community” (Rhetorica, 11.3 (1993): 211-240), and Mark Gellis’s “Leadership, Rhetoric, and the Polis” (Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 32.3 (2002): 199-208).

A separate area of interest that I might like to develop in my thesis involves preparing high school students for writing in college—not just the first-year composition course (although, that’s important, too), but developing students’ ability to write across the curriculum and enter specialized discourses. Communication between instructors and composition directors at the college level and high school teachers and administrators is, at the very least, lacking; the result is that college professors (particularly those whose students are required to write) openly wonder what the hell these kids learned in high school. Meanwhile, high school teachers, principals, and curriculum coordinators work to meet state and Federal reading and writing requirements in the secondary classroom while feeling uncertain about what’s really important for their students to succeed in college, and how to address those needs. Many educators are frustrated, but few find avenues for communication, time for research, or practical solutions. It might be nice to research these elements more carefully and apply my time and effort toward possible solutions. However, this is a broad, general discussion, and at times I’m not even sure where to start, or how.

Well, I’ve rambled on long enough for one entry! More to come, no doubt.