The Question: Why We Read and Write Literature

Major thanks to the philosophy department's Sharon Ryan, who put together a great video and essays from English department faculty and grad students answering The Question: Why we read and write literature. The video and some essays are posted here. See what motivates us as scholars and artists to engage with the worlds of literature.

Michael Austin's new book on the Founding Fathers

A former professor of mine, Michael Austin, has a new book on how the Founding Fathers have been redeployed by the right wing as a kind of stick to shut down reasonable debate. The title of the book is That's Not What They Meant!: Reclaiming the Founding Fathers from America's Right Wing.

I post this to TCH partially because we have people who work on early American lit, but also to kind of reprise some of the issues raised in Adam Komisaruk's Public Spheres Seminar from last Spring, and related less directly to Ryan Claycomb's Fall Seminar on uses of the past (though not British postmodernism). You can watch the After Words interview with Michael where he talks extensively about how the idea of the Founders functions rhetorically in contemporary public politics and in the public sphere of the Early Republic. Of course, history is used continually in the public sphere as a source of authority for certain points, but Michael's book points to a flaw in the rhetorical use of 'The Founding Fathers,' namely that there was no such thing as 'The Founding Fathers' as a kind of "collective hive mind" as Michael says in the interview. However, Michael also notes that shifting the discourse to 'some' or 'many' Founding Fathers would destroy the power of the rhetorical appeal. In other words, any position that evokes a hive mind collective of Founding Fathers relies on a logical fallacy for its authority, but despite the fallacious quality the position is incredibly effective (dangerously so, Michael argues) for limiting the sphere of what can 'legitimately' be considered in public policy.

You can follow the blog that lead up to TNWTM! here, and Michael's newest blog attempting to encourage civil and rational debate about contemporary political issues here.

ProfHacking

Among the many excellent blogs detailing academic life, perhaps none is doing so well at the business of making concrete suggestions for better teaching, writing, and simple living as an academic in a postmodern world than ProfHacker, a collective blog in the LifeHacker tradition. Yes, I'm friends with several of the contributors (and went to grad school with co-editor George Williams), but you will be hard pressed to find better advice on a more consistent basis.

The Academic Blogosophere: Moria Studies for her Exams

Moria in Excelsis is a great little blog from a PhD student working in the early modern period. She's smart and observant and thoughtful, and alternates between posts (like the one linked above) that cover real academic territory, those that detail the life of graduate work, and personal reflection.

The post I've linked to here is a good one to check out for those reading for booklist exams or those considering what a booklist exam process might look like. The process that she is detailing here is one where the reader not only has to consume and process large quantities of material, but also begin to manufacture some real knowledge out of that material.

Academic Blogosphere: Academic Cog

Academic Cog, written by "Sisyphus," provides reflections by a (now former?) literature grad student on academic writing and publishing. Entertaining (in that *special* grad student humor kind of way) and informative. I recommend a useful book review on Wendy Belcher's _Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks_  and Dissertation Leftovers: A Play. 

Academic Blogosphere: University Diaries

Margaret Soltan's blog is an excellent way to get a handle on some of the big picture stuff of Higher Education. Posting often about higher ed. news, politics, and economics, from something of a reliably humanities standpoint, Soltan's blog offers a way to stay connected to the bigger issues in academe that affect (often directly) the day-to-day lives of a working academic. Enjoy!

The Academic Blogosphere: Academhack

Occasionally, I'll post links from the academic blogosphere, a resource from which--even merely as readers--graduate students and faculty can glean a great deal about the profession and ways to navigate it.

There's a truckload of great sites out there, but today, I'll simply post a link to Academhack, a site that posts tech tips for academics. Today's news is the new blackboard app for iPhone, but there are lots of great timesavers and useful tools out there...Consider starting with their Top Ten post.