Loud, Crowded, and Out of Control: A New Model for Scholarly Publishing

March 6, 2010 | 35 comments

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Yesterday Dan Cohen, the director of the Center for History and New Media and my colleague at George Mason University, posted a thoughtful piece describing a major problem of scholarly publishing (and of book publishing more generally). Dan suggests that while the “supply” of written work has changed with the advent of digital collaborations, academic blogging, and interactive projects, the “demand” side—what readers, publishers, and rank and promotion committees expect—remains stubbornly resistant to change. To illustrate the dominant attitude of “most humanities scholars and tenure committees” toward digital work, Dan quotes a fantastic quip from John Updike:

The printed, bound and paid-for book was—still is, for the moment—more exacting, more demanding, of its producer and consumer both. It is the site of an encounter, in silence, of two minds, one following in the other’s steps but invited to imagine, to argue, to concur on a level of reflection beyond that of personal encounter, with all its merely social conventions, its merciful padding of blather and mutual forgiveness. [emphasis added]

I love this Updike passage. It’s so perfectly stated that I find myself nodding in agreement even as I recoil on the inside. We need go no further than the line I have italicized to see some of most pernicious misconceptions influencing what Dan calls the demand side of the publishing.

Reading a book, Updike says, is an encounter, in silence, of two minds.

Look at each of these three phrases. (1) An “encounter”? Well, that’s a nice vague noun and seems to include all sorts of interactions between reader and writer, but at its heart it’s an empty word that tells us nothing about the many ways this interaction can proceed: it can be sly, brutal, coy, frustrating, angry, joyous. The encounter can be all of those things, sometimes all at once. But more importantly, in new forms of publishing, the encounter can be something that you wouldn’t call an encounter at all. It can be a dance, an assault, a performance, a collision, a celebration. Using “encounter” to describe what can happen between reader and writer privileges one form of interaction, the most staid, monologic, conservative one at that.

Now what about (2) the “silence” in which this encounter supposedly occurs? Okay, yes, that’s how a lot of people read, but again, “silence” elevates one form of reading above all others. Let’s call it “polite” reading. What Updike really means by “in silence” is that any argument or meaning-making on the reader’s part must occur silently, safely firewalled far away from the writer. Safely firewalled far away from the rest of the world for that matter. The idea of a writer who either coaxes or bludgeons his or her readers into submissive silence would be abhorrent to most academics, yet that is the way the current social contract of scholarly publishing works. Peer review and letters to journal editors are merely other forms of polite reading. We applaud them as civil discourse, but in fact they are mechanisms to maintain a tolerable level of noise—by which I mean relative silence.

Finally we arrive at (3) the “two minds” involved in the silent encounter. Let’s break this phrase down even further. Two? Two? I’m not even going to bother to mention the value of collaborative research and writing, let’s just focus on Updike’s romantic vision of the relationship between a novelist and his or her reader. Two minds? What a sad, impoverished view of the world of letters. Even when it’s a single author and a single reader, more than two minds are always involved. Reading is a social activity. It is always a social activity, even when done quietly at night in an empty house. There are social contexts to writing, social contexts to reading. They are both situated activities—situated within a broader world, both requiring a wide range of supporting structures in order to exist in the first place. As for “mind,” I can appreciate that Updike sees reading and writing as intellectual endeavors, abstracted from our daily existence in the physical world. But I also couldn’t disagree more. We all know that writing is a physical activity, but we forget that reading is one too. Reading is an embodied activity. We read from within our bodies, our itching, bleeding, aging, page-turning, button-clicking bodies. Updike’s focus on the mind merely reflects that common scholarly view of the “life of the mind.” Which is just a way of ignoring the physical world.

I’d like to suggest that one way to begin changing what readers expect from scholarly publications is to deliberately invert each of these aspects of Updike’s formulation. We need texts that are loud, crowded, and out of control. We need to recognize the richness of what could count as a scholarly “encounter.” We need to encourage the opposite of silence—clamorous, public, raucous, messy discourse. We need to remember that two minds means essentially never mind; the true power of scholarly discourse lies in multiple voices, multiple bodies.

Are these changes even possible? Ian Bogost recently notoriously faulted the humanities for despising humanity, but I personally have hope. Even if it’s due to deeply ingrained habits of self-preservation, the humanities will have to change. But doing so requires an engagement with all those facts of the real world that most of us read books and retreat to libraries to escape from. Most of us don’t despise humanity so much as fear it, especially our own humanity. In an odd turn of events, it’s the affordances of the digital world that may help us renew our presence and involvement in the analog world. We have the means now to write in ways scholars could only ever dream about. So, write to be heard, write to be written back to, write to readers who are living bodies with voices of their own. Write to the crowd and let the crowd write back. Write publicly and publicly write. Write.

Gaiman and I

January 28, 2010 | 11 comments

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Neil Gaiman has done it again. He has stolen from me, again. I am talking wholesale robbery. Gaiman is a lie and a thief and an incubus that leeches upon my dreams, my unconscious, my fevered sleeping mind.

Do I have to spell it out for you? Let’s go all the way back to the beginning. In 1988, Gaiman wrote his first Sandman story, using an idea I had fourteen years earlier. The story of Morpheus, Dream, the Sandman, that was mine. 1974. I was three at the time. And granted I called him the Sandymammy, but it was the same character. Same helmet, same medallion, same Robert Smith hair, even the same sister named Death. All of it, it was mine.

I have long suspected Gaiman was behind the troubling blank spots in my mind, those silent abysses that were once filled with stories upon stories. But it was Gaiman’s recent profile in the New Yorker that categorically confirmed my greatest fears. That Gaiman has been stealing from me, for years.

The final tipoff was this: the New Yorker writer Dana Goodyear observes Gaiman taking notes during a performance by his girlfriend Amanda Palmer. Gaiman later tells Goodyear that “he had started to imagine a man who went from city to city documenting living statues the way bird-watchers check off rare species; that was when he took out his notebook.”

Now I ask you, really, where did that idea come from? Not from Gaiman’s own mind, that’s for certain. It came from me. That story is mine. I am Gaiman’s muse.

I’ll concede that Amanda Palmer was once herself a living statue, but that serves only as a convenient alibi for Gaiman’s plundering of my imagination. Yes, she was a living statue, but then, so were a lot of people. I myself have trained in the art of silence and stillness amongst a crowd in the city. I too have stood frozen in place, across a dozen cities in many countries, in deli lines, ATM lines, public restroom lines, and if anyone can tell a story about living statues it is me. That story is mine I tell you. Listen, just hours before Goodyear witnessed Gaiman writing in his notebook, I had scribbled away in my own, a heartrending story about a boy obsessed with tracking down specimens of living statues, compiling an encyclopedia of these oddities under the misguided belief that…Well, I hadn’t worked out the details from there. But neither has Gaiman.

Gaiman. Neil Gaiman. Neil “Nebula” Gaiman. A supposed purveyor of fantasy who only trades in ill-begotten goods. Who stole the living statue idea from me just hours after I dreamed it up. In full view of a reporter for the New Yorker no less. He’s always coming up with ideas he tells her. Always writing down ideas he tells her. Always filling up his notebooks he tells her.

I wonder about those notebooks, those small square black things he hides in his every pocket. They must be enchanted, that’s the only logical conclusion. I am at a loss to explain how, but every word Gaiman writes, every stroke of his precious fountain pen must drain ink from my own notebooks’ pages. Gaiman’s notebooks fill with black whilst mine fade into white.

I don’t expect many readers to doubt me. I am likely telling them what they already know, that Gaiman’s storytelling powers are an act of thievery.

I don’t expect any readers to doubt me, but Gaiman’s lawyers may try to silence my alarming revelations. Therefore, in due diligence and with a veritable respect for intellectual property, I hereby submit incontrovertible proof that Gaiman’s demon notebooks have bled dry my own copious (and brilliant) writings:

Gaiman’s magic is powerful. My notebook was once an ink-blotted jungle of tales, and now it’s a desolate polar landscape. And once I realized Gaiman’s wicked black art was draining away my own creativity I tore open the rest of my hundreds of notebooks. What I found terrifies me. They are blank, all of them, pilfered of words like the one above. They might well have never been used for all their emptiness. Engorged with the devil’s ink, Gaiman’s semiotic umbilicus must run straight through to my mind.

Even published stories of mine are vanishing. “The Cemetery Tome” (to which The Graveyard Book bears more than a passing semblance) appeared in the Fall 2005 issue of the Missoula Journal of Arts & Entropy. Would you be surprised to hear that my own copy of that journal has vanished? Would you be surprised to hear that the journal itself seems to have vanished? I have checked and double-checked seventeen different library catalogs, and the journal no longer exists. Not a trace remains. So too has the entire run of Kasper, Melchior, Belshazzar disappeared, in which I had published a number of tales transposing Old World mythologies onto New World contexts (mostly Canadian, which I see Gaiman has slyly altered to American). Even the once widely available quarterly New Labyrinths to which I was a frequent contributor is missing from the Library of Congress, WorldCat, and the Barnes & Noble periodical section.

Do you understand the source of my horror and desperation? Gaiman’s considerable talents include retroactively eliminating entire literary journals, something almost unheard of.

With each new publication, Gaiman erases one of my own. My work is æther and nobody knows what I have written. I have been subjected to the greatest retcon in history, and only Neil Gaiman and I know it. I am not even sure which of us it is that’s writing this page.

My only tactical advantage is surprise. I have realized that I know what Gaiman is going to write before he himself knows. Because I anticipate Gaiman’s every witticism, every metaphor, every upended literary trope, let me tell you exactly what his next award-winning story will be. It’s a novel about a man haunted by the knowledge that a famous author is stealing his ideas, and when he publicly exposes this author for the fraud he is, the author writes a story about the incident, about a man haunted by the theft of his ideas who then exposes the crime, only to have the author write a story about a man whose best ideas are stolen by the very author he has himself authored. And the novel can only end in one way, with the death of the author.

Ah, but which author dies, you ask? My lips are sealed. I’m not going to tell. I’m just going to let Gaiman dangle and squirm as I cut off his pipeline to the dream fields of my imagination. Let him try and figure out what happens. Gaiman is good, but not that good.

He cannot write what I have already not written.

The Archive or the Trace: Cultural Permanence and the Fugitive Text

January 18, 2010 | 42 comments

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We in the humanities are in love with the archive.

My readers already know that I am obsessed with archiving otherwise ephemeral social media. I’ve got multiple redundant systems for preserving my Twitter activity. I rely on the Firefox plugins Scrapbook and Zotero to capture any online document that poses even the slightest flight risk. I routinely backup emails that date back to 1996. Even my recent grumbles about the Modern Language Association’s new citation guidelines were born of an almost frantic need to preserve our digital cultural heritage.

I don’t think I am alone in this will to archive, what Jacques Derrida called archive fever. Derrida spoke about the “compulsive, repetitive, and nostalgic desire for the archive” way back in 1994, long before the question of digital impermanence became an issue for historians and librarians. And the issue is more pressing than ever.

Consider the case of a Hari Kunzru short story that Paul Benzon described in an MLA presentation last month. As Julie Meloni recently recounted, Kunzru had published “A Story Full of Fail” online. Then, deciding instead to find a print home for his piece, Kunzru removed the story from the web. Julie notes that there’s no Wayback Machine version of it, nor is the document in a Google cache. The story has disappeared from the digital world. It’s gone.

Yet I imagine some Kunzru fans are clamoring for the story, and might actually be upset that the rightful copyright holder (i.e. Kunzru) has removed it from their easy digital grasp. The web has trained us to want everything and to want it now. We have been conditioned to expect that if we can’t possess the legitimate object itself, we’ll be able to torrent it, download it, or stream it through any number of digital channels.

We are archivists, all of us.

But must everything be permanent?

Must we insist that every cultural object be subjected to the archive?

What about the fine art of disappearance? Whether for aesthetic reasons, marketing tactics, or sheer perversity, there’s a long history of producing cultural artifacts that consume themselves, fade into ruin, or simply disappear. It might be a limited issue LP, the short run of a Fiestaware color, or a collectible Cabbage Patch kid. And these are just examples from mass culture.

Must everything be permanent?

In the literary world perhaps the most well-known example is William Gibson’s Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), a 300-line poem published on a 3.5″ floppy in 1992 that was supposed to erase itself after one use. Of course, as Matthew Kirschenbaum has masterfully demonstrated, Gibson’s attempt at textual disintegration failed for a number of reasons. (Indeed, Matt’s research has convinced me that Kunzru’s story hasn’t entirely disappeared from the digital world either. It’s somewhere, on some backup tape or hard drive or series of screen shots, and it would take only a few clicks for it to escape back into everyday circulation).

I have written before about the fugitive as the dominant symbolic figure of the 21st century, precisely because fugitivity is nearly impossible anymore. The same is now true of texts. Fugitive texts, or rather, the fantasy of fugitive texts, will become a dominant trope in literature, film, art, and videogames, precisely because every text is archived permanently some place, and usually, in many places.

We already see fantasies of fugitive texts everywhere, both high and low: House of Leaves, The Raw Shark Texts, Cathy’s Book, The Da Vinci Code, and so on. But what we need are not just stories about fugitive texts. We need actual texts that are actual fugitives, fading away before our eyes, slipping away in the dark, texts we apprehend only in glimpses and glances. Texts that remind us what it means to disappear completely forever.

The fugitive text stands in defiant opposition to the archive. The fugitive text exists only as (forgive me as I invoke Derrida once more) a trace, a lingering presence that confirms the absence of a presence. I am reminded of the novelist Bill Gray’s lumbering manuscript in DeLillo’s Mao II. Perpetually under revision, an object sought after by his editor and readers alike, Gray’s unfinished novel is a fugitive text.

Mao II is an extended meditation on textual availability and figurative and literal disappearance, but it’s in DeLillo’s handwritten notes for the novel — found ironically enough in the Don DeLillo Papers archive at the University of Texas at Austin — that DeLillo most succinctly expresses what’s at stake:

Reclusive Writer: In the world of glut + bloat, the withheld work of art becomes the only meaningful object. (Spiral Notebook, Don DeLillo Papers, Box 38, Folder 1)

Bill Gray’s ultimate fate suggests that DeLillo himself questions Gray’s strategy of withdrawal and withholding. Yet, DeLillo nonetheless sees value in a work of art that challenges the always-available logic of the marketplace — and of that place where cultural objects go, if not to die, then at least to exist on a kind of extended cultural life support, the archive.

Years ago Bruce Sterling began the Dead Media Project, and I now propose a similar effort, the Fugitive Text Collective. Unlike the Dead Media Project, however, we don’t seek to capture fleeting texts before they disappear. This is not a project of preservation. There shall be no archives allowed. The collective are observers, nothing more, logging sightings of impermanent texts. We record the metadata but not the data. We celebrate the trace, and bid farewell to texts that by accident or design fade, decay, or simply cease to be.

Let the archive be loved. But fugitive texts will become legend.

A Tale of Two MLA Bibliographies

January 8, 2010 | 20 comments

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Last month I questioned the Modern Language Association’s decision, handed down in the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook, to exclude URLs (i.e. web addresses) from bibliographies and Works Cited lists. My readers seemed to be divided, and Rosemary Feal, the Executive Director of the MLA, joined the conversation by outlining some of the reasons for the new style guidelines. I appreciated both Rosemary’s insider perspective and her levelheaded response to my rhetorical flourishes (I wrote with gleeful abandon that the new guidelines represented nothing less than “historiographic homicide”).

The fact is, as Rosemary pointed out, you can still include URLs, they’re just not there by default. I can live with that. I’m reasonably attuned to both my sources and my audience. I can figure out when I should include web addresses for my audience’s benefit and when I shouldn’t.

But the problem isn’t me. It’s computers.

What happens when ProCite or EndNote or Zotero generates your bibliography? What happens when novice scholars — as most of our undergraduates and even our graduate students are — use a machine-made bibliography, formatted automatically without any insight or intervention?

Or, what happens when you’re just in a hurry and you let the software finalize your research for you? This is what happened to me, in fact. Just a few days ago.

The problem isn’t me. It’s computers.

I had presented a paper at the MLA’s annual convention in late December, and several people asked me to send them a copy. It was a decent paper. Not overly ambitious, just me tackling a question I had about the unorthodox use of cut scenes in the PS2 game Shadow of the Colossus. I certainly didn’t mind sending out copies to friendly audience members. As I was looking over the document in Word before emailing it, though, I noticed something very strange about my bibliography. The list of sources seemed too bare somehow. Frail. Skeletal. Impoverished.

And of course I realized what was wrong. I had formatted the bibliography through Zotero, using the new MLA style guidelines. URLs were gone, vanished, kaput! The effect was quite dramatic, since many of my sources were digital born, published in online journals with no print equivalent.

Luckily, Zotero developers extraordinaire Simon Kornblith, Christian Werthschulte, and Sebastian Karcher have created several branches of the MLA citation style for Zotero, one of them being the “MLA Style for purposes where the URL is still required.” I promptly installed the style (and you can too, if you have the Zotero plugin). I reformatted my bibliography, and finally I saw what I wanted to see: direct links to whatever sources my readers would want to follow up on.

You know which bibliographic style I prefer, but what about you?

Here’s a little experiment.

I am including below the two different bibliographies from my paper “Playing the Cut Scene: Agency and Vision in Shadow of the Colossus.“ Both were automatically generated by Zotero. The first version of the bibliography follows the new MLA citation guidelines and excludes URLs. The second version follows older MLA practices and includes URLs. Which one do you prefer? Look them over and answer the poll at the bottom of the post.

MLA BIBLIOGRAPHY #1 (FOLLOWS NEW GUIDELINES)

  • Bogost, Ian. “Persuasive Games: The Proceduralist Style.” Gamesutra 21 Jan 2009. Web. 1 Feb 2009.
  • Ciccoricco, David. “’Play, Memory’: Shadow of the Colossus and Cognitive Workouts.” Dichtung-Digital 2007. Web. 14 Mar 2009.
  • Fortugno, Nick. “Losing Your Grip: Futility and Dramatic Necessity in Shadow of the Colossus.” Well Played: Video Games, Value and Meaning. ETC Press (Beta). Web. 21 Jun 2009.
  • Galloway, Alexander R. Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. Print.
  • Juul, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005. Print.
  • Newman, James. “The Myth of the Ergodic Videogame: Some Thoughts on Player-Character Relationships in Videogames.” Game Studies 2.1 (2002): n. pag. Web. 25 Dec 2009.
  • —. Videogames. London: Routledge, 2004. Print.
  • Poole, Steven. Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. New York: Arcade, 2000. Print.
  • Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Print.
  • Sherman, Ben. “Story Mechanics as Game Mechanics in Shadow of the Colossus.” Gamesutra 28 Mar 2006. Web. 14 Mar 2009.
  • Squire, Kurt, and Henry Jenkins. “The Art of Contested Spaces.” Publications. Web. 15 Dec 2009.
  • Wolf, Mark J. P. The Medium of the Video Game. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Print.

MLA BIBLIOGRAPHY #2 (FOLLOWS OLD GUIDELINES)

  • Bogost, Ian. “Persuasive Games: The Proceduralist Style.” Gamesutra 21 Jan 2009. Web. 1 Feb 2009. <http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3909/persuasive_games_the_.php?print=1>.
  • Ciccoricco, David. “’Play, Memory’: Shadow of the Colossus and Cognitive Workouts.” Dichtung-Digital 2007. Web. 14 Mar 2009. <http://www.brown.edu/Research/dichtung-digital/2007/Ciccoricco/ciccoricco.htm>.
  • Fortugno, Nick. “Losing Your Grip: Futility and Dramatic Necessity in Shadow of the Colossus.” Well Played: Video Games, Value and Meaning. ETC Press (Beta). Web. 21 Jun 2009. <http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/node/278>.
  • Galloway, Alexander R. Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. Print.
  • Juul, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005. Print.
  • Newman, James. “The Myth of the Ergodic Videogame: Some Thoughts on Player-Character Relationships in Videogames.” Game Studies 2.1 (2002): n. pag. Web. 25 Dec 2009. <http://www.gamestudies.org/0102/newman/>.
  • —. Videogames. London: Routledge, 2004. Print.
  • Poole, Steven. Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. New York: Arcade, 2000. Print.
  • Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Print.
  • Sherman, Ben. “Story Mechanics as Game Mechanics in Shadow of the Colossus.” Gamesutra 28 Mar 2006. Web. 14 Mar 2009. <http://gamasutra.com/features/20060328/sherman_01.shtml>.
  • Squire, Kurt, and Henry Jenkins. “The Art of Contested Spaces.” Publications. Web. 15 Dec 2009. <http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/contestedspaces.html>.
  • Wolf, Mark J. P. The Medium of the Video Game. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Print.

The MLA in Tweets

January 2, 2010 | 47 comments

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I’ve learned from following several digital humanities conferences from afar the past year (including Digital Humanties 2009 and THATcamp 2009) that the Twitter archive of a conference back-channel can be unreliable. Twitter’s default search stream for any hashtag is extremely ephemeral, and that impermanence poses a problem for conference participants and observers, as well as future scholars, students, and journalists who might want to browse, search, extract, and data-mine what can be a rich, though niche, historical record.

So in anticipation of the Modern Language Association’s 2009 conference in Philadelphia, I set up a TwapperKeeper archive of all posts on Twitter marked with the hashtag #MLA09. I also began archiving the material on my own computer, using a program called The Archivist. (I’m into redundancy, especially when it comes to backing up data.) Anybody can export the collected tweets from Twapperkeeper as a compressed file, but I’m also posting here my own archives.

The first is an XML file of the over 1,600 tweets marked with the #MLA09 hashtag, dating from November 28, 2009 all the way to just about midnight on December 31, 2009: #MLA09 (I’ve zipped the xml file for easier downloading).

Second is an Excel version of the file, which has stripped away some of the XML tags, but is a more reader-friendly document: MLA09.xls

There is also a Google Docs version of the file:

I hope people find these archives useful. You can easily create some superficial data visualizations, such as the word cloud pictured above [larger version], but I imagine some more sophisticated analysis can be done as well. Even a simple pie chart [larger version] can reveal user activity at a glance:

My own high visibility is mostly due to the satirical “tips” about the MLA I posted in the days running up to the conference. And notice that two of the most active Twitterers were only virtually present at the conference: Brian Croxall and Amanda French, who both made substantial contributions to the intellectual discourse of the conference even with — or, more accurately, because — of their absences.

Pairing Brian’s bleak analysis of what the profession is now euphemistically calling “contingent” faculty with Amanda’s vision of a grassroots movement to amplify scholarly communication through social networking suggests that the MLA conference has the potential to be more diffuse, more rhizomatic, more meaning making in the future, something I’ll be proposing a few ideas about soon.

Tips for the Modern Language Association

January 2, 2010 | 36 comments

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In the spirit of my fake advice for National Novel Writing Month, last month I began posting “tips” on Twitter for the upcoming Modern Language Association conference, an annual exercise in masochism for literature professors and graduate students the world over. This year’s conference was held in Philadelphia, from December 27 to December 30, and it was most notable for the bleak prospects of job candidates, hoping to score interviews at a time when English Departments were hiring for fewer positions than ever before. My tips — and I imagine the tips from the others who joined in — were all attempts to lighten the mood and make fun of something we usually take far too seriously: ourselves.

Here are the complete tips, in chronological order:

  1. #MLA09 tip for novices: Upon arrival, locate the following: coffeeshop, drugstore, liquor store. Acquire supplies. Repeat as necessary. Posted at 11:38 AM on 12/8/2009 by profsyn
  2. #MLA09 Tip: Always preface your question to a panelist with “I know your paper was about X, but let me tell you about MY work…” Posted at 1:20 PM on 12/13/2009 by samplereality
  3. #MLA09 Tip: Be sure to rewatch Sharon Stone in “Basic Instinct” for interview tips on poise and posture. Posted at 3:04 PM on 12/13/2009 by samplereality
  4. #MLA09 tip for novices: The cool kids will always be outside smoking. At the *other* entrance to the hotel. Posted at 9:37 AM on 12/15/2009 by profsyn
  5. #MLA09 tip for novices: No one at the convention is as glad to see each other as they pretend to be. Posted at 12:03 PM on 12/20/2009 by profsyn
  6. #MLA09 tip: MLA is in the City of Brotherly Love this year, so you may recline fraternally on the hotel room bed during your job interview. Posted at 2:42 PM on 12/21/2009 by amandafrench
  7. #MLA09 tip: Watch http://9interviews.com. Watch and learn. Posted at 2:51 PM on 12/21/2009 by briancroxall
  8. #MLA09 Tip: Nothing says “promising job candidate” like an acappella performance of “She Bangs” in the interview suite. Posted at 4:12 PM on 12/21/2009 by samplereality
  9. #MLA09 Tip: Figure out which of your interviewers is the Paula Abdul of the bunch, and get her drunk alone. Posted at 4:15 PM on 12/21/2009 by briancroxall
  10. #MLA09 Tip: Jargon. No one understood Derrida, and he had a job. Impenetrability is your best defense. Posted at 4:17 PM on 12/21/2009 by briancroxall
  11. #MLA09 Tip: Failing impenetrable jargon in your interview, speak with a heavy foreign accent, preferably Slovenian. Posted at 4:23 PM on 12/21/2009 by samplereality
  12. #MLA09 Tip: Speakers used to say “quote” & “end quote” to indicate a quotation. In the digital age, you need merely spell out the URL. Posted at 4:31 PM on 12/21/2009 by amandafrench
  13. #MLA09 Tip: Drink big glass of water right before interview. You write better w/deadline pressure.Your mind works better w/bladder pressure. Posted at 4:32 PM on 12/21/2009 by briancroxall
  14. #MLA09 Tip: An accent will not work for Comp Lit positions. Comp Litters should smoke during the interview, punctuating points with exhales. Posted at 4:34 PM on 12/21/2009 by samplereality
  15. #MLA09 Tip: Make deliberate use of split infinitives during your presentation to edgily show your edginess. Posted at 4:48 PM on 12/21/2009 by amandafrench
  16. #MLA09 Tip: If you see your interview committee later, ideally in the elevator, ask them if they have made a decision yet. Follow up is key. Posted at 4:50 PM on 12/21/2009 by academicdave
  17. #MLA09 Tip: In your job interview, argue that you’d make a really good literature Professor because you really, really, really love to read. Posted at 5:04 PM on 12/21/2009 by amandafrench
  18. #MLA09 Tip: Be sure to seek out journal editors who’ve rejected your essays. Explaining their mistake in person = badass networking skillz. Posted at 5:05 PM on 12/21/2009 by seabright
  19. #MLA09 Tip: Explain you’re going “carbon neutral” and insist the hiring committee pay for carbon offsets before you answer their questions. Posted at 5:14 PM on 12/21/2009 by samplereality
  20. #MLA09 Tip:If you should run into a candidate exiting an interview as you walk in,offer to settle the matter via a duel.Pistols at 30 paces. Posted at 5:15 PM on 12/21/2009 by academicdave
  21. #MLA09 Tip: Registration, $125. Hotel, $300. Dinner and drinks, $65. Finding Stanley Fish’s room and stealing his dry cleaning, priceless. Posted at 5:19 PM on 12/21/2009 by briancroxall
  22. #MLA09 Tip: Every time you pass up an open bar at a public reception, a puppy dies. Posted at 5:29 PM on 12/21/2009 by samplereality
  23. #MLA09 Tip: There’ll be a whole salmon at the Princeton cash bar. Put it down your pants. They’ll know it’s an allusion to The Corrections. Posted at 5:33 PM on 12/21/2009 by amandafrench
  24. #MLA09 Tip: What to say when job search committee asks if you have questions: “How strict a policy on sleeping with students do you have?” Posted at 8:26 PM on 12/21/2009 by georgeonline
  25. #MLA09 Tip: During your job interview always use air quotes when using the words “service” or “teaching.” Posted at 8:28 PM on 12/21/2009 by georgeonline
  26. #MLA09 Tip: First time at MLA? Understand that you shd begin every post-panel question with “This is more of a comment than a question…” Posted at 8:31 PM on 12/21/2009 by georgeonline
  27. #MLA09 Tip: Pay homage to Benjamin Franklin while in Philadelphia by sneaking your bastard children into MLA governance committees. Posted at 9:02 PM on 12/21/2009 by samplereality
  28. #MLA09 Tip: Interview committees find it endearing if you giggle every time you say “phallus.” Posted at 9:15 PM on 12/21/2009 by samplereality
  29. #MLA09 Tip: Everyone knows Philly is famous for its cheesesteaks. But be sure to sample our fab cornhole ballers du jour too. Posted at 10:16 PM on 12/21/2009 by samplereality
  30. #MLA09 Tip: In the hotel lobby will be seated many nervous, dowdy people in black suits looking at papers or laptops. These are FBI agents. Posted at 9:00 AM on 12/22/2009 by amandafrench
  31. #MLA09 Tip: Dude, they’re TOTALLY gonna ask you to define “clinamen.” Seriously. Yes way. Posted at 9:10 AM on 12/22/2009 by amandafrench
  32. #MLA09 Tip: It’s considered bad form to live tweet the annual cage match between Terry Eagleton and Gayatri Spivak. Wagers are fine though. Posted at 10:02 AM on 12/22/2009 by samplereality
  33. #MLA09 Tip: If you can find an outfit in a color darker than black, wear it. Posted at 10:23 AM on 12/22/2009 by mlaconvention
  34. #MLA09 Tip: If the panelist keeps not quite answering your question in Q&A, keep pressing. They must be made to submit. Posted at 12:24 PM on 12/22/2009 by briancroxall
  35. #MLA09 Tip: Make your research and pedagogy sound more impressive by adding “e-” and “cyber-” prefixes to everything you say. Posted at 12:34 PM on 12/22/2009 by georgeonline
  36. #MLA09 Tip: There won’t be wifi connectivity in the panels. Unless you bring that 30-foot antenna with you. Posted at 12:41 PM on 12/22/2009 by briancroxall
  37. #MLA09 tip: if you’re talking to someone more junior/less famous than you, keep scanning the room over her head – someone better’s coming! Posted at 12:41 PM on 12/22/2009 by kfitz
  38. #MLA09 Tip: if you’re talking to someone more senior/more famous than you, don’t look them in the eye. Aim for the lapel. Try to blush. Posted at 12:43 PM on 12/22/2009 by briancroxall
  39. #MLA09 Tip: Don’t acknowledge the presence of “colleagues” from schools with a 4/4 (or higher!) course load. It just encourages ‘em. Posted at 12:50 PM on 12/22/2009 by jbj
  40. #MLA09 Tip: why drink coffee from the beverage stations? You’ll make a much stronger impression if you whip out a flask & take a few belts. Posted at 12:50 PM on 12/22/2009 by seabright
  41. #MLA09 Tip: conferences are an alternate dimension where time behaves differently. No need to cut that talk from 40 minutes down to 20. Posted at 12:52 PM on 12/22/2009 by amndw2
  42. #MLA09 Tip: When grabbing handsful of free chocolate at booths (insidehighered is known for the cocoa stash), pretend to look @ offerings. Posted at 12:53 PM on 12/22/2009 by mlaconvention
  43. #MLA09 Tip: If you see interview candidates, beam them a silent meditation (“may you do well, may you interview with ease”). Posted at 12:55 PM on 12/22/2009 by mlaconvention
  44. #MLA09 Tip: If you see other interview candidates, HUG IT OUT, BITCH! Posted at 12:56 PM on 12/22/2009 by briancroxall
  45. #MLA09 Tip: If you see search cte mbrs, beam them a silent meditation (“may you be kind to all, may you convince dean to hire 3 candidates”) Posted at 12:57 PM on 12/22/2009 by mlaconvention
  46. #MLA09 Tip: Be sure your author name adjectives are correct, e.g., Kafkaesque, Dickensian, Shakespearean, Yeatsy, Austeniferous, DeLilloid. Posted at 1:36 PM on 12/22/2009 by amandafrench
  47. #MLA09 Tip: French maid outfits are almost never appropriate attire for job interviews. Take it from someone who knows. Posted at 1:39 PM on 12/22/2009 by samplereality
  48. #MLA09 Tip: If your interview doesn’t begin with hugs all around, leave the room. You wouldn’t want to work with people like that anyway. Posted at 1:40 PM on 12/22/2009 by samplereality
  49. #MLA09 Tip: Don’t take it personally if nobody shows up at your 8:30am panel. It just means nobody finds your life’s work interesting. Posted at 1:41 PM on 12/22/2009 by samplereality
  50. #MLA09 Tip: Everyone knows that academics are critical thinkers. Not bound by convention. That’s why you should *only* use Apple products. Posted at 1:44 PM on 12/22/2009 by briancroxall
  51. #MLA09 Tip: Happily, the 20-minute paper limit doesn’t apply to the formulation of a question from an audience member. Posted at 1:45 PM on 12/22/2009 by samplereality
  52. #MLA09 Tip: If the audience outnumbers your panel, your session is “well-attended.” (A moderator counts as half a panelist.) Posted at 1:45 PM on 12/22/2009 by RichardMenke
  53. #MLA09 Tip: Everything you say on your flight or train to and from Philly will be overheard by someone who knows who you are talking about. Posted at 1:49 PM on 12/22/2009 by mlaconvention
  54. #MLA09 Tip: You’ll be able to spot me at the convention because I look just like my @mlaconvention avatar. Posted at 2:04 PM on 12/22/2009 by mlaconvention
  55. #MLA09 Tip: If people appear to be tweeting during your presentation, don’t worry, most of them are playing Bejeweled. Posted at 2:18 PM on 12/22/2009 by warnick
  56. #MLA09 Tip: Need guidance? Every year, the Gideons’ Bibles in all convention hotels are replaced with copies of *Of Grammatology*. Posted at 2:18 PM on 12/22/2009 by RichardMenke
  57. #MLA09 Tip (for real): You should still tip your server even if it’s an open bar. Posted at 2:24 PM on 12/22/2009 by georgeonline
  58. #MLA09 Tip: nail, cigar, pen, Q, stock, cue, of the hat, O’neill, (per) Gore… enough tips for ya? Posted at 2:59 PM on 12/22/2009 by mlaconvention
  59. #MLA09 Tip: Hang out with ODH’s @jasonrhody. He’s a real mensch & can tell you tales of the internets. Posted at 3:49 PM on 12/22/2009 by brettbobley
  60. #MLA09 Tip: Try to work a few “whatevs” into any conversation you have, especially with prominent scholars and or hiring committee members. Posted at 4:27 PM on 12/22/2009 by georgeonline
  61. #MLA09 Tip: Good, cheap, Chinese BYOB restaurant? Ask me Lee HOW fook. http://www.leehowfook.com/ Posted at 4:58 PM on 12/22/2009 by mlaconvention
  62. #MLA09 Tip: Insomnia? Forgot to eat during the day? Little Pete’s, 219 S. 17th St is open around the clock. It’s a greasy spoon, nttawwt. Posted at 5:03 PM on 12/22/2009 by mlaconvention
  63. #MLA09 Tip for panelists: Don’t know how to answer aud. member’s question? Respond with “That’s what *she* said!” and hi-5 fellow panelists. Posted at 5:05 PM on 12/22/2009 by georgeonline
  64. #MLA09 Tip: Mention this tip during your interview for a free campus visit. Guaranteed! (Disclaimer: Not Guaranteed) Posted at 8:45 PM on 12/22/2009 by samplereality
  65. #MLA09 Tip: To get away from it all, pretend the #MLA09 hashtag is actually for the Medical Library Association ‘09 meeting in Honolulu. Posted at 9:11 PM on 12/22/2009 by dancohen
  66. #MLA09 Tip: Scooter rentals are only for people with disabilities. Being on the job market inexplicably does not count as a disability. Posted at 9:42 PM on 12/22/2009 by samplereality
  67. #MLA09 Tip: Don’t be fooled by the smiles and bonhomie. People are devastated about leaving behind their families for all that free booze. Posted at 12:30 AM on 12/23/2009 by samplereality
  68. #MLA09 Tip: Your field is French medieval lyric. His is the postmodern novel in English. I don’t care how cute he is: IT’LL NEVER WORK OUT. Posted at 8:55 AM on 12/23/2009 by amandafrench
  69. #MLA09 Tip: Don’t even joke in the interview about calling a lifeline. That reference from 2000 will be too current for committees to get. Posted at 9:12 AM on 12/23/2009 by samplereality
  70. #MLA09 Tip: The theme of Judith Butler’s annual cosplay event is “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Yeah, I know. We were disappointed too. Posted at 10:23 AM on 12/23/2009 by samplereality
  71. #MLA09 Tip: MLA guidelines state that candidates should not have to sit on a bed during interviews. But come on, you know you want to. Posted at 12:27 PM on 12/23/2009 by samplereality
  72. #MLA09 Tip: It’s considered rude to leave the room after the “star” speaker has talked. Instead, stay and heckle the other panelists. Posted at 12:32 PM on 12/23/2009 by samplereality
  73. #MLA09 Tip: Search committees are always flattered to hear you’ve been stalking them. Be sure to mention that pic of their kid on Facebook. Posted at 1:54 PM on 12/23/2009 by samplereality
  74. #MLA09 Tip: Every year the work of a new theorist dominates the conference: Agamben, Badiou, Hardt & Negri. This year make it Tom Colicchio. Posted at 7:45 PM on 12/23/2009 by samplereality
  75. #MLA09 Tip: If you’re not spending Christmas Eve either practicing your talk or rehearsing for interviews, you really are a Scrooge. Posted at 11:42 AM on 12/24/2009 by samplereality
  76. #MLA09 Tip: Mix family and work on Christmas Day. Tell dear old Aunt Stella how Moby Dick signifies both a phallus AND a vagina dentata. Posted at 7:24 AM on 12/25/2009 by samplereality
  77. #MLA09 Tip: An interview is the perfect time for Modernists to admit they think the last lines of “The Dead” are pure and utter bullshit. Posted at 9:00 AM on 12/25/2009 by samplereality
  78. #MLA09 tip: Find free conference parking on the street! Look for trash cans/lawn chairs in shoveled-out spots. All yours! http://is.gd/5Bqcu Posted at 4:39 PM on 12/25/2009 by mkgold
  79. #MLA09 tip: If you find yourself “interviewing” on a bed at the Marriott, just close your eyes and think of tenure. Posted at 4:53 PM on 12/25/2009 by DrGnosis
  80. #MLA09 Tip: Let the search committee know how technogically sophisticated you are by texting during the interview. Posted at 8:48 PM on 12/25/2009 by samplereality
  81. #MLA09 Tip: It is considered good luck in Philly to run up the “Rocky Steps” just minutes before any endeavor, like a talk or interview. Posted at 8:51 PM on 12/25/2009 by samplereality
  82. #MLA09 Tip: Don’t forget that a prize for “Best Zombie Costume” will be awarded at Monday night’s Presidential Address. Posted at 9:56 PM on 12/25/2009 by samplereality
  83. #MLA09 Tip: Bring leftover Xmas cookies, rum cake, and bûche de Noël to give your interviewers. Also eggnog. And whiskey. Posted at 7:57 AM on 12/26/2009 by amandafrench
  84. #MLA09 Tip: Always begin your talk by thanking “The Academy.” Sure it’s a cliché, but everyone expects you to say it. Posted at 1:34 PM on 12/26/2009 by samplereality
  85. #MLA09 Tip: Not enough room on your credit card to pay the hotel bill? Your advisor will happily expiate survivor guilt by lending you $$. Posted at 2:04 PM on 12/26/2009 by amandafrench
  86. #MLA09 Tip: Not enough room on your credit card to pay the hotel bill? Your advisees will happily curry favor by lending you $$. Posted at 2:05 PM on 12/26/2009 by amandafrench
  87. #MLA09 Tip: Bentham’s Panopticon inspired Philly’s Eastern State Penitentiary. Dante’s Inferno inspired the Convention Center’s Ballroom B. Posted at 3:07 PM on 12/26/2009 by samplereality
  88. #MLA09 tip: if a speaker goes over the allowed time it is perfectly acceptable to tackle them. Terry Tate Office Linebacker style. Posted at 6:23 PM on 12/26/2009 by academicdave
  89. #MLA09 Tip: Afraid the theorist whose work you’re criticizing is in the audience? Groucho glasses and mustaches are available in gift shop. Posted at 6:34 PM on 12/26/2009 by samplereality
  90. #MLA09 Tip: Forget Zizek. For real street/theory cred, tell the committee how you’ve been inspired by the work of Zinedine Zidane. Posted at 6:49 PM on 12/26/2009 by briancroxall
  91. #MLA09 Tip: Kate Hayles isn’t actually a robot. I know: I was disappointed too. Posted at 6:54 PM on 12/26/2009 by briancroxall
  92. #MLA09 Tip: Use the phrase “In conclusion” so that audiences know you only have 15 minutes left to go in your talk. Posted at 8:56 PM on 12/26/2009 by samplereality
  93. #MLA09 Tip: No pain, no gain! When the going gets tough, the tough get going! Take no prisoners! RRRAAWWGHHH!! Posted at 9:02 AM on 12/27/2009 by amandafrench
  94. #MLA09 Tip: You could do worse than drinking a Yuengling in Philly, and by Wednesday night, you probably will. Posted at 9:07 AM on 12/27/2009 by samplereality
  95. #MLA09 Tip: Nobody uses business cards to exchange contact info. Either use the Bump app or a cocktail napkin written in lipstick. Or both. Posted at 9:21 AM on 12/27/2009 by samplereality
  96. #MLA09 tip: when choosing a plane pcik one without a smoking cockpit. Posted at 12:24 PM on 12/27/2009 by academicdave
  97. #MLA09 Tip (Serious one): You are one block from awesome and cheap food. Scads of it at the Reading Terminal Market: http://bit.ly/8Whdt0. Posted at 4:22 PM on 12/27/2009 by briancroxall
  98. #MLA09 Tip: The horrible nightmare that you forgot your interview suit probably just means you forgot your interview suit. Posted at 5:15 PM on 12/27/2009 by samplereality
  99. #MLA09 Tip: Four 20-minute papers is too much for a single panel. Russian roulette is not a viable option until healthcare reform is passed. Posted at 5:33 PM on 12/27/2009 by samplereality
  100. #MLA09 Tip: Looking for your soul in the hotel lobby costs valuable hotel whirlpool time. Posted at 7:43 PM on 12/27/2009 by mirk79
  101. #MLA09 Tip: For all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet, conclusively establish the identity of “Mr. W. H.”. Posted at 9:39 PM on 12/27/2009 by amandafrench
  102. #MLA09 Tip: Your goal for Monday morning: Achieve enlightenment. Failing that, settle for achieving consciousness. Posted at 10:34 PM on 12/27/2009 by samplereality
  103. #MLA09 Tip: It’s 1:30am. You’re in a bar. You have a necktie around your forehead. You can take off your MLA badge now. Posted at 1:30 AM on 12/28/2009 by samplereality
  104. #MLA09 Tip: That delightful dream about wood nymphs just means you’ve overslept your panel and will be blacklisted from the MLA forever. Posted at 7:14 AM on 12/28/2009 by samplereality
  105. #MLA09 Tip: Despite the practice of the high priests of our profession, death by PowerPoint is not a noble way to die. Posted at 10:03 AM on 12/28/2009 by samplereality
  106. #MLA09 Tip: Are your ideas too good to share with the rest of the room? Sit in the front row and ask your four-minute question sotto voce. Posted at 2:56 PM on 12/28/2009 by warnick
  107. #MLA09 Tip: The upside to the depressing job market is that blackmail and bribery are almost pointless anymore. Posted at 11:12 PM on 12/28/2009 by samplereality

It was great to see Rosemary Feal, the Executive Director of the MLA, join into the fun. And thanks especially to Amanda French and Brian Croxall, who contributed greatly to the list, even while absent from the conference itself (a true loss, by the way, and the conference — and profession — was poorer for it).

MLA Word Cloud for 28 December 2009

December 29, 2009 | 13 comments

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Today the Modern Language Association Conference goes into its second full day of meetings in Philadelphia. What’s the conference been like so far? You can be the judge of whether the conference backchannel on Twitter captures the conference or not. Here’s a word cloud of all #MLA09 tweets from Monday, December (minus the hashtag itself) [LARGER IMAGE]:

The Modern Language Association Wishes Away Digital Différance

December 21, 2009 | 53 comments

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This is the first academic semester in which students have been using the revised 7th edition of the MLA Handbook (you know, that painfully organized book that prescribes the proper citation method for material like “an article in a microform collection of articles”).

From the moment I got my copy of the handbook in May 2009, I have been skeptical of some of the “features” of the new guidelines, and I began voicing my concerns on Twitter:

But not only does the MLA seem unprepared for the new texts we in the humanities study, the association actually took a step backward when it comes to locating, citing, and cataloging digital resources. According to the new rules, URLs are gone, no longer “needed” in citations. How could one not see that these new guidelines were remarkably misguided?

To the many incredulous readers on Twitter who were likewise confused by the MLA’s insistence that URLs no longer matter, I responded, “I guess they think Google is a fine replacement.” Sure, e-journal articles can have cumbersome web addresses, three lines long, but as I argued at the time, “If there’s a persistent URL, cite it.”

Now, after reading a batch of undergraduate final papers that used the MLA’s new citation guidelines, I have to say that I hate them even more than I thought I would. Although “hate” isn’t quite the right word, because that verb implies a subjective reaction. In truth, objectively speaking, the new MLA system fails.

The MLA apparently believes that all texts are the same

In a strange move for a group of people who devote their lives to studying the unique properties of printed words and images, the Modern Language Association apparently believes that all texts are the same. That it doesn’t matter what digital archive or website a specific document came from. All that is necessary is to declare “Web” in the citation, and everyone will know exactly which version of which document you’re talking about, not to mention any relevant paratextual material surrounding the document, such as banner ads, comments, pingbacks, and so on.

The MLA turns out to be extremely shortsighted in its efforts to think “digitally.” The outwardly same document (same title, same author) may in fact be very different depending upon its source. Anyone working with text archives (think back to the days of FAQs on Gopher) knows that there can be multiple variations of the same “document.” (And I won’t even mention old timey archives like the Short Title Catalogue, where the same 15th century title may in fact reflect several different versions.)

The MLA’s new guidelines efface these nuances, suggesting that the contexts of an archive are irrelevant. It’s the Ghost of New Criticism, a war of words upon history, “simplification” in the name of historiographic homicide.

National Novel Writing Month Tips

December 1, 2009 | 34 comments

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November has been decreed National Novel Writing Month by some wise guy in California. The idea is that you have 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel. A noble endeavor to be sure, but one that seems doomed to not succeed on any satisfying level. I imagine it’s like running a marathon, but without the cheering crowd at the finish line. Or the fans handing out water bottles along the route. Or the actual route. And you probably don’t have running shoes either. Not to mention the earth has imploded and you’ve been sucked into an infinite abyss of unfathomable existential despair.

Sounds fun, right?

Back on November 1, the first day of National Novel Writing Month, one of my students who was participating in NaNoWriMo (the event’s official lovely, beckoning acronym) posted on Twitter that she was already stuck. As I am want to do in position of having written many novels in my head but never having put a single word to paper, I proceeded to post to Twitter a small piece of writerly advice (“If you’re stuck on your novel, the sudden appearance of a killer robot can really whip things into shape.”). I had such fun writing this tip that I began to post other mock suggestions to Twitter. I could not handle a 50,000 word novel, but I could manage, occasionally, 140-characters of satire. I ended up posting a least one tip every day, and often three or four tips. It’s probably the most sustained, laser-beam focused writing I’ve done in a long time, even if it was never more than 25 words at once.

Over 166,7000 writers signed up for NaNoWriMo, and while it’s too soon to say how many actually finished, I want to share here, in their entirety, all of my fake NaNoWriMo tips. In all but a few instances, these tips appear exactly as they did on Twitter (I removed the #NaNoWriMo hashtag on all of them and edited a few for clarity).

Some are funny. Some are very funny. Some are obviously trying too hard to be funny, and failing. But all of them, I like to think, hint at some underlying truth or untruth about the process of writing and publishing fiction, and of writing in general.

Please, take some time to read them, and vote for your favorite in the comments!

November 1, 2009

(1) If you’re stuck on your novel, the sudden appearance of a killer robot can really whip things into shape.

(2) Omniscient first person narration is woefully neglected. As are talking cars, pets, and buildings.

(3) You can always pad your word count by having a character in your novel rewrite Don Quixote word-for-word.

November 2, 2009

(4) Never underestimate the plot twists the sudden appearance of a lost identical twin can provide.

(5) End every chapter with a cliffhanger. Literally. End with characters dangling on a precipice. Preferably in the Alps.

(6) Take advantage of the symbolism of colors. For example, red means passion, danger, and the face of a drunken Irishman.

(7) Base your characters on instantly recognizable archetypes. Failing that, base them on the Baldwin Brothers.

(8) Falling behind on today’s word count? Each Elven Rune counts as an entire sentence! (You do have an Elf in your novel, right?)

November 3, 2009

(9) Introduce a Spanish Marquis and milk his name for word count: Don Carlos Jimenez Sanchez Sanchez y Lucientes de las Cabras.

(10) The arrival of a mysterious telegram works for all genres and time periods. Nothing spells intrigue in 1371 like Morse Code.

(11) Ayn Rand wrote “The Fountainhead” fueled by copious meth. But you, you should just stick to coffee and cigarettes.

(12) Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe. Other times, it can be a murder weapon. Be sure to clarify which it is for your reader.

November 4, 2009

(13) Writer’s Block? Introduce a character who speaks in tongues and then let your cat type for you. (Requires a cat.)

(14) Use a minute timer to stay focused on manageable goals. For example, give yourself 43,800 minutes to write 50,000 words.

(15) Great Art is the product of repression and oppression. So try to forget that time your cousin kissed you and get yourself arrested.

November 5, 2009

(16) Writing a western or romance? Having good guys in white and bad in black is a cliché. Make good guys ninjas and bad guys cannibals.

(17) Novelists should dress for success just like everyone else. Failing that, novelists should at least dress.

November 6, 2009

(18) The cursed monkey paw plot device has ruined many a novel. But man, when it works, IT WORKS.

(19) A pleasant work area is key to a writer’s success. Get Starbucks all to yourself by chasing everyone out with your farts.

November 7, 2009

(20) Add a note of elegance and sophistication to your novel by using British spelling, e.g. colour, honour, bloody arsehole.

(21) Don’t forget that if you run out of things to write about, you can write about how you’ve run out of things to write about.

(22) RT @wshspeare: Take advantage of the rich tradition of stealing other writers’ ideas and words when you run out of your own.

November 8, 2009

(23) “Write about what you know” is good advice, unless you’re OJ Simpson.

(24) Remember mystery novels can be set anywhere: horse tracks, babysitter clubs, monasteries, call centers, Sesame St., rectums.

(25) Sarcasm is difficult to pull off in a novel. Oh, but I’m sure YOU can do it.

(26) It’s never too early to start counting on that first royalty check. In fact, you should quit your day job, right now.

(27) Writing a spy novel? The enemy can’t be Russian, Arab, or Cuban anymore. You’re left with the Amish. Double Secret Amish.

(28) Writing about a brilliant professor who solves 1,000-year-old mysteries? This tip is for you. Why does my cat puke in my shoes?

November 9, 2009

(29) Tap into the avantgarde market. Publish your novel on Twitter. 50,000 words = 2,000 tweets. That’s only 67 tweets per day.

(30) Add tension by making the gender of your narrator indeterminate. This works for race too. And age. And number of nipples.

(31) Rehearse for your imminent book tour by showing up drunk at a Borders and telling everyone “I’m here to sign my books.”

(32) Your post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel is incomplete without at least one mention of T.G.I. Fridays. Chili’s will do in a pinch.

November 10, 2009

(33) If a latchhook needle shows up in chapter 1, you damn well better have a latchhook bath mat show up by the end of your novel.

(34) Is your book a triumph of human spirit or horrific descent into abjection? The former if you have elves. Clowns, the latter.

(35) Reenergize your writing by changing your workspace. Move out of your parents’ basement.

(36) Seek inspiration from the natural world, like gardens, flowers, butterflies, doves, and sulphurous pools of molten rock.

(37) The hero’s journey is a universal plot structure. So is Smokey and the Bandit. In either case, a redneck sheriff is crucial.

(38) An unresolved ending creates demand for a sequel. Smokey & the Bandit only whets our appetites for Smokey & the Bandit II.

November 11, 2009

(39) Good writers evoke the 5 senses. Great writers evoke the 6th Sense. Reveal at the end the protagonist was DEAD ALL ALONG.

(40) Remember to “show not tell.” This means your narrator should be mute, with x-ray vision. In other words, a supervillain.

(41) Already finished your 50,000 word novel? Get a head start on December’s National Totally Made Up Memoir Writing Month.

(42) If you are writing a Novel of Ideas, be sure to include either a misunderstood rebel or a talking bear. But please not both.

(43) If you haven’t already written in a xenophobic blowhard character, the likeness of Lou Dobbs is now available.

November 12, 2009

(44) Realism is all about details. For example, the USA never converted to the metric system. We measure chicken by the bucket.

(45) Know your audience. Are you writing for soccer moms, Nascar dads, or horny teenagers who fantasize about hunky vampires?

(46) Pacing is everything in a novel. If you’re not pacing round the room, you’re not suffering enough and don’t deserve to write.

(47) Remember the 4 types of conflicts that underlie all novels: Man v. Man, Man v. Nature, Man v. Himself, and Man v. MS Word.

(48) Use evocative metaphors. A good metaphor is like a, hell, I don’t know, it’s like a simile, I guess.

(49) Unreliable narrators are a big problem. Since we figured out that waterboarding doesn’t work, I suggest you just humor them.

(50) Comic novels are hard to write. But come on, you have it easy. Comic tweets are even harder.

November 13, 2009

(51) Don’t think about audience. You’re only writing for one person. His name is Frank J. Smalley and he comes from St. Louis.

(52) Love scenes are tricky to write, but necessary. A novel without a love scene is like a monkey without a rocketship.

(53) Love scenes may be tricky to write, but take it from one who knows, they’re even trickier to film, what with the lighting, the music, etc.

November 14, 2009

(54) Using dialect in a character’s dialogue isn’t politically correct. Unless it’s a Swedish chef. Swedish chefs are always allowed to sound like Swedish chefs.

(55) Sure, vampires and zombies are hot right now. But look to the future. The next big literary gimmick is giant land krakens.

(56) I don’t care what you may have heard, you cannot write a novel wrapped in a Snuggie, holding a cup of tea, a cat on your lap.

(57) Yes, Glenn Beck wore a slanket while writing his bestseller. But it’s technically not a novel, though it is fiction.

(58) If you go to a coffee shop to work on your novel, yes, you really have us all fooled that you’re there to write.

November 15, 2009

(59) The hero’s quest is a classic plot, most fully realized in the Harold & Kumar films. Seek inspiration from repeat viewings.

(60) November is halfway over, which must mean that every single novel being written anywhere in the world is now half finished.

(61) Remember, writers may have tax-deductible non-reimbursed job expenses: paper, coffee, NOS, prescription pills, therapy, etc.

(62) Those who can write novels, do. Those who can’t, tweet about it.

November 16, 2009

(63) Within every LOLCat meme lurks the backstory to a novel. Except Three Wolf Moon. That one is mine, bitch.

(64) Fan mail can be a huge distraction. Do what I do: hire an assistant who deals with everything but the naughty letters.

(65) Restraining orders can be especially burdensome during the research phase of your novel. You know what I’m talking about.

(66) Scandinavians are great literary innovators we could all learn something from. Case in point: glögg.

(67) The arc of the moral universe is long and it bends toward slutty vampire novels.

November 17, 2009

(68) Writing a novel where machines become self-aware and enslave humankind? Congratulations! That’s never been done. You rock.

(69) Only 20,000 words to go! Get cracking now on the longest car chase in the history of the novel.

(70) Download I Am D-Brown from the app store to autotune your novel.

(71) Inspiration from the muses is a myth. We all know creativity comes from randomly generated time-homogenous Markovian chains.

November 18, 2009

(72) 50,000 words is nothing. Shoot for 250,000 words. Write a novel that is Too Big To Fail.

(73) A character’s name can reveal his inner self. Consider examples from Dickens: Gradgrind, Murdstone, Wackford, Darth Vader.

(74) A tip for the aspiring horror author: Politics makes strange bedfellows. So does zombie erotica.

(75) Remember the 4 basic elements found in every great novel: setting, character, conflict, and goatse.

(76) The right title is crucial for your success. Stephen King’s “It” wouldn’t be the same with the title “Scary Killer Clown.”

November 19, 2009

(77) Tempted to use a nursery rhyme for the title of your thriller? We’ve all been there. Don’t do it. Stick with palindromes.

(78) Don’t tell your doctor about your writer’s block. Most insurance companies now count it as a pre-existing condition.

(79) Create suspense by ending each chapter mid-sente

November 20, 2009

(80) We’ve all heard about indie filmmakers maxing out their credit cards to make films. Feel free to max out yours this month.

(81) Writing a novel is about expressing yourself. That, and playing Freecell.

(82) Every picture tells a story, don’t it? Well, no. You’re not Rod Stewart, thank God, and it’s not 1971.

(83) Only 10 days left, and what? You still don’t have a pirate in your novel?? Heed the call of the scourge of the seven seas.

(84) Remember the Authors Guild ruling that you are legally obligated to include one ninja for every pirate in your novel.

November 21, 2009

(85) Hit a block in your writing? Uh, sorry. I got nothing.

(86) Remember the literal meaning of the word “novel”: An antiquated form of expression which discourages experimentation and originality.

November 22, 2009

(87) A writer once advised me, “Follow your obsession.” Of course, he had just finished a book on the breast in German literature.

(88) Bored by the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel? Raise the bar by writing a 50,000 word PALINDROME.

November 23, 2009

(89) Look to Shakespeare for plot ideas, like the mad prince, the spurned lover, and the flesh-eating virus that devours Hoboken.

(90) Remember that the DEL button on your keyboard stands for deliverance. Press it often.

(91) The SYSRQ key is obviously the most essential button on your keyboard when you’re writing a novel. Its uses are endless.

(92) Of course, if you’re on a Mac, then you don’t have the SYSRQ key. This does not bode well for your novel.

November 24, 2009

(93) Very, very, very good writers use intensifiers really, really, really sparingly.

(94) The difference between a good novelist and a great one is measured in fluid ounces.

(95) The best novels start with a mysterious stranger coming to town. Like a gunfighter with a secret past. Or a killer monkey.

(96) Does your novel re-imagine the story of D.B. Cooper from the point of view of a bag of money? You win. The rest of us quit.

November 25, 2009

(97) Drink appropriately when you write: Beaujolais for a romance, martini for a spy novel, MGD for a working class hero, and Tang for scifi.

(98) Remember that the only holiday officially recognized by novelists is Administrative Assistants’ Day.

November 26, 2009

(99) Now that your novel is almost finished, start thinking about the trilogy. Standalone novels are for wusses.

November 27, 2009

(100) It’s too bad you weren’t up at 4am writing. I had a bunch of doorbuster NaNoWriMo tips, but they’re all gone now.

November 28, 2009

(101) Not sure how to end your 50,000 word masterpiece? Might I suggest a car crash? Or perhaps a train wreck? The Rapture is also good. All three FTW.

(102) Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams are in a bidding war for the screen rights to your novel. Don’t give in. Hold out for Emmerich.

(103) Only on page 5 and 48 hours left? No problem. Wrap it up with a comet strike and have a 195 page index.

(104) Official NaNoWriMo guidelines say that novel titles count toward word count. The semicolon and colon are your friends.

November 29, 2009

(105) Acknowledgments don’t count toward your word count. Therefore, don’t waste your time thanking anybody but me.

November 30, 2009

(106) The Great American Novel MUST end with an epic kick-ass Boss Battle. Might I suggest giant ectoplasmic zombie robots?

(107) Studies show that most accidents happen within 5 pages from the conclusion. Safety first! Startling plot reversals later!

(108) If none of my tips / Have helped your book this dark fall / Write haikus instead.

(109) You’re bragging how you “wrote” a “novel” this month? Shut your pie-hole. Nora Roberts wrote FOUR, plus a made-for-TV movie.

(110) If you’re on the East Coast, 20 minutes to wrap it up. If you’re on the West Coast, well la-di-da. Your time is gonna come.

(111) I dare you to end your novel with an exclamation point. I dare you!

(112) A deathbed confession on the final page is all well and good, but nothing closes down the place like waking up from a dream.

(113) Edgar Allan Poe said it best: “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. And to hell with Microsoft Word.”

(114) It’s ten till midnight. Do you know where your narrator is?

(115) Some novels, like grandma’s freezer-burned cookies from 1986, are best left unfinished.

(116) It is finished. My microwave popcorn, that is. Who the hell knows about your novel.

(117) Nevermore

Thanks for reading, and see you in March, when I’ll return with tips for National Coke and Vodka Rock Bottom Memoir Writing Month (NaCoVoRoBoMeWriMo)! In the meantime, look for me on Twitter.

Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2009 MLA

November 15, 2009 | 38 comments

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Below are all of the upcoming 2009 MLA sessions related to new media and the digital humanities. Am I missing something? Let me know in the comments and I’ll add it to the list. You may also be interested in following the Digital Humanities/MLA list on Twitter. (And if you are on Twitter and going to the MLA, let Bethany Nowviskie know, and she’ll add you to the list.)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 28

116. Play the Movie: Computer Games and the Cinematic Turn

8:30–9:45 a.m., 411–412, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Anna Everett, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Homay King, Bryn Mawr Coll.

  1. “The Flaneur and the Space Marine: Temporal Distention in First-Person Shooters,” Jeff Rush, Temple Univ., Philadelphia
  2. “Viral Play: Internet Humor, Viral Marketing, and the Ubiquitous Gaming of The Dark Knight,” Ethan Tussey, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
  3. “Playing the Cut Scene: Agency and Vision in Shadow of the Colossus,” Mark L. Sample, George Mason Univ.
  4. “Suture and Play: Machinima as Critical Intimacy for Game Studies,” Aubrey Anable, Hamilton Coll.

120. Virtual Worlds and Pedagogy

8:30–9:45 a.m., Liberty Ballroom Salon C, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Gloria B. Clark, Penn State Univ., Harrisburg

  1. “Rhetorical Peaks,” Matt King, Univ. of Texas, Austin
  2. “Virtual Theater History: Teaching with Theatron,” Mark Childs, Warwick Univ.; Katherine A. Rowe, Bryn Mawr Coll.
  3. “Realms of Possibility: Understanding the Role of Multiuser Virtual Environments in Foreign Language Curricula,” Julie M. Sykes, Univ. of New Mexico
  4. “Information versus Content: Second Life in the Literature Classroom,” Bola C. King, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
  5. “Literature Alive,” Beth Ritter-Guth, Hotchkiss School
  6. “Virtual World Building as Collaborative Knowledge Production: The Online Crystal Palace,” Victoria E. Szabo, Duke Univ.
  7. “Teaching in Virtual Worlds: Re-Creating The House of Seven Gables in Second Life,” Mary McAleer Balkun, Seton Hall Univ.
  8. “3-D Interactive Multimodal Literacy and Avatar Chat in a College Writing Class,” Jerome Bump, Univ. of Texas, Austin

For abstracts and possibly video clips, visit www.fabtimes.net/virtpedagog/.

141. Locating the Literary in Digital Media

8:30–9:45 a.m., Liberty Ballroom Salon A, Philadelphia Marriott

  1. “‘A Breach, [and] an Expansion’: The Humanities and Digital Media,” Dene M. Grigar, Washington State Univ., Vancouver
  2. “Locating the Literary in New Media: From Key Words and Metatags to Network Recognition and Institutional Accreditation,” Joseph Paul Tabbi, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago
  3. “Digital, Banal, Residual, Experimental,” Paul Benzon, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick
  4. “Genre Discovery: Literature and Shared Data Exploration,” Jeremy Douglass, Univ. of California, San Diego

170. Value Added: The Shape of the E-Journal

10:15–11:30 a.m., Liberty Ballroom Salon C, Philadelphia Marriott

Speakers: Cheryl E. Ball, Kairos, Keith Dorwick, Technoculture, Andrew Fitch and Jon Cotner, Interval(le)s, Kevin Moberly, Technoculture, Julianne Newmark, Xchanges, Eric Dean Rasmussen and Joseph Paul Tabbi, Electronic Book Review

The journals represent a wide range of audiences and technologies. The speakers will display the work that can be done with electronic publications.

For summaries, visit www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~kxd4350/ejournal.

212. Language Theory and New Communications Technologies

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Jefferson, Loews

Presiding: David Herman, Ohio State Univ., Columbus

  1. “Learning around Place: Language Acquisition and Location-Based Technologies,” Armanda Lewis, New York Univ.
  2. “Constructing the Digital I: Subjectivity in New Media Composing,” Jill Belli, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York
  3. “French and Spanish Second-Person Pronoun Use in Computer-Mediated Communication,” Lee B. Abraham, Villanova Univ.; Lawrence Williams, Univ. of North Texas

245. Old Media and Digital Culture

1:45–3:00 p.m., Washington C, Loews

Presiding: Reinaldo Carlos Laddaga, Univ. of Pennsylvania

  1. “Paper: The Twenty-First-Century Novel,” Jessica Pressman, Yale Univ.
  2. “First Publish, Then Write,” Craig Epplin, Reed Coll.
  3. “Digital Literature and the Brazilian Historic Avant-Garde: What Is Old in the New?” Eduardo Ledesma, Harvard Univ.

For abstracts, write to craig.epplin@gmail.com.

254. Web 2.0: What Every Student Knows That You Might Not

1:45–3:00 p.m., Liberty Ballroom Salon C, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Laura C. Mandell, Miami Univ., Oxford

Speakers: Carolyn Guertin, Univ. of Texas, Arlington; Laura C. Mandell; William Aufderheide Thompson, Western Illinois Univ.

For workshop materials, visit www.mla.org/web20.

264. Media Studies and the Digital Scholarly Present

1:45–3:00 p.m., 411–412, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Pomona Coll.

  1. “Blogging, Scholarship, and the Networked Public Sphere,” Chuck Tryon, Fayetteville State Univ.
  2. “The Decline of the Author, the Rise of the Janitor,” David Parry, Univ. of Texas, Dallas
  3. “Remixing Dada Poetry in MySpace: An Electronic Edition of Poetry by the Baronness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven in N-Dimensional Space,” Tanya Clement, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
  4. “Right Now: Media Studies Scholarship and the Quantitative Turn,” Jeremy Douglass, Univ. of California, San Diego

For abstracts, links, and related material, visit http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/mla2009 after 1 Dec.

265. Getting Funded in the Humanities: An NEH Workshop

1:45–3:45 p.m., Liberty Ballroom Salon A, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: John David Cox, National Endowment for the Humanities; Jason C. Rhody, National Endowment for the Humanities

This workshop will highlight recent awards and outline current funding opportunities. In addition to emphasizing grant programs that support individual and collaborative research and education, this workshop will include information on new developments such as the NEH’s Office of Digital Humanities. A question-and-answer period will follow.

268. Lives in New Media

3:30–4:45 p.m., 305–306, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: William Craig Howes, Univ. of Hawai‘i, Mānoa

  1. “Blogging the Pain: Disease and Grief on the Internet,” Bärbel Höttges, Univ. of Mainz
  2. “New Media and the Creation of Autistic Identities,” Ann Jurecic, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick
  3. “‘25 Random Things about Me’: Facebook and the Art of the Autobiographical List,” Theresa A. Kulbaga, Miami Univ., Hamilton

322. Looking for Whitman: A Cross-Campus Experiment in Digital Pedagogy

7:15–8:30 p.m., 410, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Matthew K. Gold, New York City Coll. of Tech., City Univ. of New York

Speakers: D. Brady Earnhart, Univ. of Mary Washington; Matthew K. Gold; James Groom, Univ. of Mary Washington; Tyler Brent Hoffman, Rutgers Univ., Camden; Karen Karbiener, New York Univ.; Mara Noelle Scanlon, Univ. of Mary Washington; Carol J. Singley, Rutgers Univ., Camden

Visit the project Web site, http://lookingforwhitman.org.

338. Beyond the Author Principle

7:15–8:30 p.m., Liberty Ballroom Salon C, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Bruce R. Smith, Univ. of Southern California

  1. “English Broadside Ballad Archive: A Digital Home for the Homeless Broadside Ballad,” Patricia Fumerton, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Carl Stahmer, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
  2. “The Total (Digital) Archive: Collecting Knowledge in Online Environments,” Katherine D. Harris, San José State Univ.
  3. “Displacing ‘Shakespeare’ in the World Shakespeare Encyclopedia,” Katherine A. Rowe, Bryn Mawr Coll.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29

361. Making Research: Limits and Barriers in the Age of Digital Reproduction

8:30–9:45 a.m., 411–412, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Robin G. Schulze, Penn State Univ., University Park

  1. “The History and Limitations of Digitalization,” William Baker, Northern Illinois Univ.
  2. “Moving Past the Hype of Hypertext: Limits of Scholarly Digital Ventures,” Elizabeth Vincelette, Old Dominion Univ.
  3. “Transforming the Study of Australian Literature through a Collaborative eResearch Environment,” Kerry Kilner, Univ. of Queensland
  4. 4. “A Proposed Model for Peer Review of Online Publications,” Jan Pridmore, Boston Univ.

413. Has Comp Moved Away from the Humanities? What’s Lost? What’s Gained?

10:15–11:30 a.m., 411–412, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Krista L. Ratcliffe, Marquette Univ.

  1. “Turning Composition toward Sovereignty,” John L. Schilb, Indiana Univ., Bloomington
  2. “Composition and the Preservation of Rhetorical Traditions in a Global Context,” Arabella Lyon, Univ. at Buffalo, State Univ. of New York
  3. “What Composition Can Learn from the Digital Humanities,” Olin Bjork, Georgia Inst. of Tech.; John Pedro Schwartz, American Univ. of Beirut

For abstracts, visit www.marquette.edu/english/ratcliffe.shtml.

420. Digital Scholarship and African American Traditions

10:15–11:30 a.m., 307, Philadelphia Marriott

Speaker: Anna Everett, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

For abstracts, visit www.ach.org/mla/mla09/ after 1 Dec.

490. Links and Kinks in the Chain: Collaboration in the Digital Humanities

1:45–3:00 p.m., 410, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Tanya Clement, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

Speakers: Jason B. Jones, Central Connecticut State Univ.; Laura C. Mandell, Miami Univ., Oxford; Bethany Nowviskie, Univ. of Virginia; Timothy B. Powell, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Jason C. Rhody, National Endowment for the Humanities

For abstracts, visit http://lenz.unl.edu/mla09 after 1 Dec.

512. Journal Ranking, Reviewing, and Promotion in the Age of New Media

3:30–4:45 p.m., Liberty Ballroom Salon C, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Meta DuEwa Jones, Univ. of Texas, Austin

Speakers: Daniel Brewer, L’Esprit Créateur; Mária Minich Brewer, L’Esprit Créateur; Martha J. Cutter, MELUS; Mike King, New York Review of Books; Joycelyn K. Moody, African American Review; Bonnie Wheeler, Council of Editors of Learned Journals

560. (Re)Framing Transmedial Narratives

7:15–8:30 p.m., Congress A, Loews

Presiding: Marc Ruppel, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

  1. “From Narrative, Game, and Media Studies to Transmodiology,” Christy Dena, Univ. of Sydney
  2. “To See a Universe in the Spaces In Between: Migratory Cues and New Narrative Ontologies,” Marc Ruppel
  3. “Works as Sites of Struggle: Negotiating Narrative in Cross-Media Artifacts,” Burcu S. Bakioglu, Indiana Univ., Bloomington

For abstracts, visit www.glue.umd.edu/~mruppel/Ruppel_MLA2009_SpecialPanelAbstracts.docx.

575. Gaining a Public Voice: Alternative Genres of Publication for Graduate Students

7:15-8:30 p.m., Room 405, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding:  Jens Kugele, Georgetown Univ.

  1. “Animating Audiences: Digital Publication Projects and Their Publics,” Jentery Sayers, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
  2. “Blogging Beowulf,” Mary Kate Hurley, Columbia Univ.
  3. “Hope Is Not a Husk but Persists in and as Us: A Proposal for Graduate Collaborative Publication,” Emily Carr, Univ. of Calgary
  4. “The Alternative as Mainstream: Building Bridges,” Katherine Marie Arens, Univ. of Texas, Austin

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30

625. Making Research: Collaboration and Change in the Age of Digital Reproduction

8:30–9:45 a.m., Grand Ballroom Salon L, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Maura Carey Ives, Texas A&M Univ., College Station

  1. “What Is Digital Scholarship? The Example of NINES,” Andrew M. Stauffer, Univ. of Virginia
  2. “Critical Text Mining; or, Reading Differently,” Matthew Wilkens, Rice Univ.
  3. “‘The Apex of Hipster XML GeekDOM’: Using a TEI-Encoded Dylan to Help Understand the Scope of an Evolving Community in Digital Literary Studies,” Lynne Siemens, Univ. of Victoria; Raymond G. Siemens, Univ. of Victoria

632. Quotation, Sampling, and Appropriation in Audiovisual Production

8:30–9:45 a.m., 406, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Nora M. Alter, Univ. of Florida; Paul D. Young, Vanderbilt Univ.

  1. “‘We the People’: Imagining Communities in Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” Badi Sahar Ahad, Loyola Univ., Chicago
  2. “Pinning Down the Pinup: The Revival of Vintage Sexuality in Film, Television, and New Media,” Mabel Rosenheck, Univ. of Texas, Austin
  3. “Playful Quotations,” Lin Zou, Indiana Univ., Bloomington
  4. “For the Record: The DJ Is a Critic, ‘Constructing a Sort of Argument,’” Mark McCutcheon, Athabasca Univ.

643. New Models of Authorship

8:30–9:45 a.m., Grand Ballroom Salon K, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Carolyn Guertin, Univ. of Texas, Arlington

  1. “Authors for Hire: Branded Entertainment’s Challenges to Legal Doctrine and Literary Theory,” Zahr Said Stauffer, Univ. of Virginia
  2. “The Digital Archive in Motion: Data Mining as Authorship,” Paul Benzon, Temple Univ., Philadelphia
  3. “Scandalous Searches: Rhizomatic Authorship in America’s Online Unintentional Narratives,” Andrew Ferguson, Univ. of Tulsa

For abstracts, visit https://mavspace.uta.edu/guertin/mla-models-of-authorship.html.

655. Today’s Students, Today’s Teachers: Technology

10:15–11:30 a.m., 410, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Christine Henseler, Union Coll., NY

  1. “Ning: Teaching Writing to the Net Generation,” Nathalie Ettzevoglou, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs; Jessica McBride, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs
  2. “Online Tutoring from the Ground Up,” William L. Magrino, Jr., Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania; Peter B. Sorrell, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick
  3. “Using Facebook for Online Discussion in the Literature Classroom,” Emily Meyers, Univ. of Oregon

676. The Impact of Obama’s Rhetorical Strategies

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Grand Ballroom Salon K, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: Linda Adler-Kassner, Eastern Michigan Univ.

  1. “Keeping Pace with Obama’s Rhetoric: Digital Ecologies in the Writing Program and the White House,” Shawn Casey, Ohio State Univ., Columbus
  2. “Classroom 2.0 Connecting with the Digital Generation: Pedagogical Applications of Barack Obama’s Rhetorical Use of Twitter,” Jeff Swift, Brigham Young Univ., UT
  3. “Obama Online: Using the White House as an Exemplar for Writing Instruction,” Elizabeth Mathews Losh, Univ. of California, Irvine
  4. “Made Not Only in Words: The Politics and Rhetoric of Barack Obama’s New Media Presidency as a Moment for Uniting Civic Rhetoric and Civic Engagement,” Michael X. Delli Carpini, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Dominic DelliCarpini, York Coll. of Pennsylvania

Respondent: Linda Adler-Kassner

703. Teaching Literature by Integrating Technology

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Commonwealth Hall A1, Loews

Presiding: Peter Höyng, Emory Univ.

  1. “Tatort Technology: Teaching German Crime Novels,” Christina Frei, Univ. of Pennsylvania
  2. “Old Meets New: Teaching Fairy Tales by Using Technology,” Angelika N. Kraemer, Michigan State Univ.
  3. “The Role of E-Learning in Excellence Initiatives: Ideal Scenarios and Practical Limitations,” David James Prickett, Humboldt-Universität

Respondent: Caroline Schaumann, Emory Univ.

706. Digital Africana Studies: Creating Community and Bridging the Gap between Africana Studies and Other Disciplines

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Adams, Loews

Presiding: Zita Nunes, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

Speakers: Kalia Brooks, Inst. for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts; Bryan Carter, Univ. of Central Missouri; Kara Keeling, Univ. of Southern California

For abstracts, visit www.ach.org/mla/mla09/ after 1 Dec.

710. Frontiers in Business Writing Pedagogy: New Media and Literature Strategies

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 308, Philadelphia Marriott

Presiding: James K. Archibald, McGill Univ.

  1. “New Media and Business Writing,” Harold Henry Hellwig, Idaho State Univ.
  2. “Bringing Second Life to Business Writing Pedagogy,” R. Dirk Remley, Kent State Univ., Kent
  3. “The Literature of Business: An Approach to Teaching Literature-Based Writing-Intensive Courses,” Scott J. Warnock, Drexel Univ.

Respondent: Mahli Xuan Mechenbier, Kent State Univ., Kent

For abstracts, write to kwills@iupuc.edu.

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