DawgNotes: February 2005 Archives

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February 25, 2005

For Kubernetes

This is for my friend over on Kubernetes who is wrestling with Foucault this semester, and who will read this himself this week if he hasn't already:

Hayden White, in a perfect verification of his summary of Croce's claim that studying past results is not a method for predicting the future, wrote in his 1973 essay "Foucault Decoded,":

It seems safe to predict that the work of Michel Foucault will not attract the ardent interest of the Anglo-American philosophical community.

loved it.....

Posted by cageyer at 12:30 PM | Comments (3)

February 23, 2005

Thinking Problem

I can't remember now who I was talking to when this came up, but they hadn't heard of it, so I wanted to post it. I was surprised to find it in a blog called "Jumbo Joke." In my version, circulated widely through e-mail about 10 years ago, the last line isn't part of the text. Still, for my academic friends, a moment of reflection: "Do You Have a Thinking Problem?"

Posted by cageyer at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

February 22, 2005

Entries

So now I have 21 active ILLiad requests, all for books by a man who died over 40 years ago, whose work is a part of the history of the field that I have undertaken to present to a contemporary audience. (This is the 'what was I thinking?!" moment). In some ways, it just seems easier to get on a plane and fly to Washington, since 20 of the entries come from there anyway. But when they arrive here, they won't have come from there. Through the hidden mysteries of library-ing, they will come from an assortment of schools where our own library has some better arrangement.

So who is this person? Porter Perrin. You may have read about him in an earlier post I made detailing my project. Or not. But if you find this message, and know anything at all about his work, I'd sure love to hear from you!

Then there's the 711 course blog, where spammers have decided that every one of my entries needed a trackback to some disgusting porno references. Nice.

Then, there's the comments I've been making on others blogs, which feel a little like e-mail, except I have no record of them and therefore the words seem to flow out into the void and get lost. That feels strange to me, after keeping all my words for so long. And in some ways it feels like trying to make small talk at a party through a glass wall. If there's no reply, did the other person hear me?

Finally, there's the blog itself. And the books that sit next to my elbow because I want to say something about them, but I don't know what yet, and there's a certain urgency about that that also feels strange. As though someone is out there, waiting, expecting my words, and they are resistant.

Posted by cageyer at 10:41 AM | Comments (4)

February 17, 2005

Stuf I used to know: Mind Maps

It occurred to me last night, while reading Marcia's blog, that I used to know some stuff that I often forget. So I've created a new category mostly for myself to remind myself of stuff I used to know, so that I can use it in the life I'm creating going forward.

In this case, the category is "invention," and the subject is composition, or even (*gasp*) writing. Marcia wrote about her invention exercise of making a list of topics to be covered, and that made me think about a mind map. Do you know about mind maps? I used to. I even used to use them - delightful, fun tool that can involve colors and pictures, circles, lines, arrows, diagrams, or other visual forms that both arrange thoughts and stimulate thoughts. Since I got to graduate school, I've never once used one. But now I'd like to. I'd even like to use the scratch outline. The sometimes simple, sometimes seemingly basic, tools we offer our students are tools we, the teachers/graduate students, can be using too. I even wrote that to myself once, in my teaching journal, that I listened to myself teaching my students and realized I could learn a lot about doing my own work by following my own hints.

So back to mind mapping. If you haven't done this before, I will be hard pressed to explain what it is in pure type, but if you ever had to diagram a sentence, the beginning mind map looks very similar, except on each diagonal there is another tangential idea, instead of a speech part identifier. In my mapping, there is a word in the center, with a circle around it, and then several spokes out to other circles with other words, each with other spokes. If I had a list, I might have circles around some words with arrows pointing to other words, or cross-arrows, or squares and circles and triangles to group ideas.

The sort of ground breaker text on mind mapping is by Tony Buzan, called Using Both Sides of Your Brain.. It's an older text--first edition 1974--and a small text, but the ideas in it are great. Buzan has gone on to write other books about mind mapping and maximizing the creative power of the brain, and other folks have written about mind mapping since then. I used to teach it in my corporate life, as a method of problem solving or innovating. Somehow I hadn't made the connection to using it in paper drafting, but now that I have had this reminder from Marcia, maybe I can remember to use that tool in the future.

Posted by cageyer at 03:49 PM | Comments (1)

Small Pieces disjointed

I've been following my colleagues' posts about our week's reading over on Network(ed) Rhetorics about David Weinberger's book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined, and the website he co-authored (back to that term in a minute) with Doc Searls called World of Ends. And while I have some questions about some of the terms and assumptions in both pieces, I seem much less inclined to jump on those problems. I'm really much more interested in the potential and the philosophy I find there.

Philosophy?

Yeah. Am I the only one who noticed the many references in Weinberger to Heidegger? Am I the only one who noticed that really cool Star Trek moment of talking-to-the-energy-being-at-the-edge-of-the-galaxy-about-the meaning-of-being-embodied? Maybe because I'm more of a Trekkie than a techie I glommed on to this aspect of the work, one that I can more easily relate to. It might also because I'm reading Phillip Goodwin's book Capitalism and Religion: The Price of Piety for my religion class this week, and he has a whole chapter called "Potency" that opens with this Derridaean/Heideggerian moment of death/embodiment, time and care. More about the Goodwin text elsewhere, but the overlap with Weinberger in these two very different contexts seemed worth paying attention to. Weinberger sees the Web as a body-less space, a space where identity can be constructed and connections made that are freed from the physical limits of embodiment. But as Tyra so eloquently observed, blogging is writing. There is a physical materiality to the act of producing the components that make up the web - words, the machinery and software and communication devices than enable the transmission of words, or the placement of words, into the web space. Some physical limits, like two objects occupying the same space at the same time, are transcended, but others aren't. Bodies are still required, bodies that carry identities and values shaped by relationships.

The energy being at the edge of the galaxy may be body-less, but that is not the same as omnicient. The fact that I have access to the web and a certain understanding of how to navigate it and add my words to its content does not mean that I know it or all that is within in it. Sometimes I go point by point, systematically through the many ends that touch one another until I am somewhere completely on the far side of the sphere. Other times, because I know a shortcut or two, I cut through the hollow core directly to that far place. I tend to jump to places with content that matters to me, but in that direct leap I may miss information that matters to others, that could matter to me, if I knew it was there, which I don't unless I invest the time to link my way step by step through the possibilities.

Time boundaries restrict the number of things the embodied I can care about, that matter to the mind in this body in this limited temporal space.

disjointed piece number 1 concluded.

Posted by cageyer at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)

February 14, 2005

teaching journal

Friend and office buddy Tyra is keeping her "required" teaching journal online, and I am ever so glad she is! Her posts remind me of why I wanted to do this thing in the first place, of the magic I found in teaching, in the wonder of interaction with students, and the joys that come from classroom interaction. She writes with honesty, poetry, and engaging prose. I hope she'll continue. I hope she'll help me remember to do it when I return to the classroom next year.

thanks, T.

Posted by cageyer at 11:50 PM | Comments (1)

workplace rules

I had a conversation this evening with a former coworker who is a good friend. In the course of the usual catching up, we got to talking about another former coworker, who had decided to exit our former workplace by slitting his wrists in his cubicle and asking his teammates to call the director so she could see what the place had done to him.

Now, such drama should be cause for deep concern about the health and well-being of the individual in the cubicle, but for me it's really not. Actually, my first question was "were the cuts vertical?" My friend didn't know, but my guess is they were not (this guess is partly based in personal experience, and partly in knowing that he recovered and wanted his job back). I know the individual in question - I was a chief advocate for hiring him. I'm glad I wasn't there when he decided to traumatize the rest of that working community for whatever personal issues he had going on (and he did have many). I hope the rest of the folks in that hardworking office got over the event, hope they knew enough not to carry a guilt burden, but I know some of them did, and that's the real tragedy of it.

What's my point? It's this: if the job was so damn taxing, why didn't he just quit and get a different one? Why subject the other people in that office to something haunting? I'm told the director, also a friend, declined to rehire him because his was an act of workplace violence, for which the institution has a zero tolerance. (rock on, woman!) What is it about people that makes them think they can take a job and then demand that the job conform to their whims?

There's something about this culture of demand and entitlement that rankles me, but probably never so much as when one selfish individual determines that his or her personal pain gives him or her the right to afflict others in some traumatizing way. What he did wasn't about seeking help--it was about hurting others. And that will never be okay with me.

Meanwhile, the coworker who called is off with a positive outlook to seek work in the field for which his is best qualified: working with the most valuable of corporate resources--humans.

rock on, Shawn. Thanks for calling.

Posted by cageyer at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2005

The crazy notions I get at school...

Every semester--well, actually, it was every quarter before I got to a semester-based school--I have the same problem. Early in the term, I get great and grand ideas for projects. Every term, at the end of the term, I wonder what in the hell I was thinking about when I set said projects up. You'd think I would learn, but I never do.

In that spirit, my first project proposal has been submitted over on HistoryBump. If you want to follow the agony from the beginning, you can read the whole thing there, or the highlights here.

UPDATE 9 Dec 2005: HistoryBump is being closed, so the original posts can be found here, here, and here.

Project Working Title: Editing Porter Perrin's Dissertation

Rational: Porter Perrin directed Albert Kitzhaber's dissertation, but is underrepresented in this history of composition scholarship. By following John Gage's example in his editing of Kitzhaber's dissertation, I will provide an overview of Perrin's writing, his academic work, the influences on him and those he influenced.

Methodology: Historicism. I will contextualize Perrin's work and influences for the twenty-first century composition scholar/practitioner.

Method: Primarily archival research, including primary texts authored or edited by Perrin, introductory material by co-authors in later editions of Perrin's texts, and Perrin's papers at Colgate University and the University of Washington.

Initial Goal (for this course): Read the dissertation, review other materials, begin compiling footnotes for the dissertation text, draft a preliminary introduction, an outline of the overall project and a plan for its completion.

Research Questions,:
- What would a twenty-first century student or practitioner in the field of composition need to know to understand Perrin's dissertation and its relevance?
- Porter Perrin is a white male academic working in the middle of the twentieth century. At a time when recovery work focuses on underrepresented groups, what can be gained by a better understanding of Perrin's work?

I should mention, I had no illusions (delusions?) of being able to finish this project is a semester (hence the initial goal part), but it seems like a good academic project, and a worthy endeavor a contribution to the field. Beats another boring seminar paper all to hell, that's for certain.

Posted by cageyer at 02:43 PM | Comments (1)

Geyer Project Proposal (rev. 2-13) - CCR 611

Project Working Title: Editing Porter Perrin's Dissertation

Methodology: Historicism. I will contextualize Perrin's work and influences for the twenty-first century composition scholar/practitioner.

Research Questions:
- What would a twenty-first century student or practitioner in the field of composition need to know to understand Perrin's dissertation and its relevance?
- Porter Perrin is a white male academic working in the middle of the twentieth century. At a time when recovery work focuses on underrepresented groups, what can be gained by a better understanding of Perrin's work?

Some supporting questions:
- What does the reader need to know about the author's life? (This is the biographical part.)
- What allusions, literary, social, or otherwise, shape the meaning of the text?
- With whom was Perrin working/studying at the University of Chicago? How, if at all, do the values or theories of those people influence the text?
- How much of Perrin's dissertation work is revealed, followed, or departed from in his later work?
- How widely used were Porter's Writer's Guide, Reference Handbook, Index, and Guide used?
- Besides Kitzhaber, what other dissertations did Perrin direct, if any, and what other working relationships did he have the influenced the field of composition and rhetoric?
- What other information about Perrin's work in the field is important and relevant?

Working Bibliography:
Sources readily available:
Brown, Leonard Stanley, and Porter G. Perrin. A Quarto of Modern Literature. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935.*

Gage, John T., intro. Rhetoric in American Colleges, 1850-1900. By Albert R. Kitzhaber. Dallas: Southern Methodist UP, 1990. vii-xxii.

Perrin, Porter G. "Freshman Composition and the Tradition of Rhetoric." Perspectives on English: Essays to Honor W. Wilbur Hatfield. Ed. Robert C. Pooley. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts; National Council of Teachers of English, 1960. 119-132.

Perrin, Porter G. An Index to English. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1939.*

Perrin, Porter G. "Maximum Essentials in Composition." College English 8.7 (1947): 352-360.

Perrin, Porter G. "For a Responsible Rhetoric." College English 10.4 (1949): 222-223.

Perrin, Porter G., with Karl W. Dykema. Writer's Guide and Index to English. 3rd ed. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1959.*

*These are the editions available at Bird Library. I would like to try to obtain different editions of these works from ILLIAD, or through campus visits.

Other potential works (final ones to be included will be based on availability as well as content):

Perrin, Porter G., George H. Smith, and Jim W. Corder. Handbook of Current English. 3rd ed. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1968.

Perrin, Porter G., and William Kelley Wright. The History of Modern Philosophy. Hanover, NH, 1917.

Perrin, Porter G. "Notes on Lectures by Porter G. Perrin." Transcribed by Emily Ann Beatty. Publication of the Fifth Workshop in Basic Communication, University of Denver, 1947. Ed. Thelma R. Sherman. U Denver P, 1947. 6-30.

Perrin, Porter G., and George H. Smith. The Perrin-Smith Handbook of Current English. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1955.

Perrin, Porter G. "A Realistic Philosophy for Teachers of English." College English 9.5 (1948): 256-264.

Perrin, Porter G. Reference Handbook of Grammar and Usage. New York: Morrow, 1972.

Perrin, Porter G. "Text and Reference Books in Rhetoric before 1750." Chicago, 1940.

Platt, Harrison Gray, and Porter G. Perrin. Current Expressions of Fact and Opinion. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1941.

Warnock, Robert, Porter G. Perrin, Frank Earl Ward, and Harrison Gray Platt. Using Good English: A Textbook and Workbook in Writing, Reading, and Speaking. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1944.

Posted by cageyer at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2005

where I've lived

This suddenly seems like a cool thing to follow tyratae, tuba player, StepAside, Lyings and tirades on, so here's where I've lived:

Portland, Oregon (home)
Astoria, Oregon
Madras, Oregon
Edmonds, Washington
Lynnwood, Washington (same house, annexed by city)
Bothell, Washington
Bellevue, Washington
Snohomish, Washington
Everett, Washington (barely)
Edmonds, Washington (oddly enough, about a mile as the crow flies from my childhood home there)
Seattle, Washington
Syracuse, NY
Camillus, NY

this list may not be that long, but it belies the number of times I've moved as an adult.

Portland will always be home. The Willamette will always be the river I listen to, even though the Columbia is usually the one that tells me I'm home.

and then there's McMenamin's, but that's another post.

Posted by cageyer at 08:52 PM | Comments (2)

February 11, 2005

Geyer Project Proposal (CCR 611 - 2nd blush)

My final project will be to begin the process of editing Porter Perrin's dissertation, with a view to finishing that project after the course has concluded.

I see this project as one of historicism, where my attempt will be to situate Perrin and his work in historical and disciplinary context. The dissertation, titled "The Teaching of Rhetoric in American Colleges Before 1750," is the primary text for the project. It will reflect both what Perrin saw as important in the early history of rhetoric instruction, as well as what was important in his time (the 1930s specifically).

The primary research question will be, "what would a twenty-first century student or practitioner in the field of composition need to know to understand Perrin's dissertation and its relevance?" Some supporting questions are:

- What does the reader need to know about the author? (This is the biographical part.)
- What allusions, literary, social, or otherwise, shape the meaning of the text?
- With whom was Perrin working/studying at the University of Chicago? How, if at all, do the values or theories of those people influence the text?
- How much of Perrin's dissertation work is revealed, followed, or departed from in his later work?
- How widely used were Porter's Writer's Guide, Reference Handbook, Index, and Guide used?
- What other information about Perrin's work in the field is important and relevant?

My goal will be to write an introduction to the dissertation, along with such footnotes as seem appropriate for the text itself. If the project were to advance to publication, i would anticipate a bibliography being included.

Preliminary Bibliography:
Brown, Leonard Stanley, and Porter G. Perrin. A Quarto of Modern Literature. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935.

Perrin, Porter G. An Index to English. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1939.

Perrin, Porter G., with Karl W. Dykema. Writer's Guide and Index to English. 3rd ed. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1959.

These are the editions available at Bird Library. I would like to try to obtain different editions of these works from ILLIAD. I'm interested in learning more about Karl Dykema and his involvement with Perrin, since he appears more than once in newer editions of Perrin's older texts. Also, John Breretson placed Perrin at the University of Washington in an administrative capacity. It's possible they have some of his papers or other documents that reveal aspects of his work. I will contact both the English department and the library to find out.