Category: Literature

Graphic Novels and Narratives for Spring 2011

Mark Sample3 Comments

Daredevil CoverI always find it difficult to select the texts for my graphic novel courses. Narrowing the choices for my Spring 2011 undergrad class bordered upon an existential crisis. Perhaps it’s because so much seems to be at stake when you’re likely introducing students for the first time in their lives to the critical study of a form that is mostly trivialized and occasionally demonized in our culture.

I feel enormous pressure to get the syllabus just right.

But what is just right? There’s the usual tension between coverage and depth—am I providing a historical overview of the form or am I exploring a thematic or aesthetic subset of that form? But there’s also the tension between the canons of graphic narrative. Yes, canons, plural. I’m thinking in particular of the literary canon of Graphic Novels That Are Taught (e.g. Persepolis) versus the popular canon of Graphic Novels That Every Fan Reads (e.g. Sandman). There’s some overlap between these canons, but not much. Inevitably I’ll have students in my class disappointed because I’ve not included a major work on the syllabus—some text they expected to be there either because it’s predictably literary or it’s a fan favorite. Likewise, I’ll usually hear from some other teacher or scholar disappointed that I didn’t include his or her pet graphic novel on the syllabus, which, I will be assured at that point, is to graphic narrative what Moby-Dick is to the American novel.

To hell with that.

This time around the only criteria for the texts I’m teaching is that they’re texts I want to teach. And I want to teach them because in one way or another I think they’re teachable. Even when—especially when—they might be difficult or off-putting, I think they’re teachable.

And so, for the upcoming semester I decided to avoid several giants of the form. It will be the first time, for example, that I’ve left Watchmen off a graphic novel syllabus, and I am less ambivalent about this than I would have thought. As much as I admire Moore and Gibbons’ work, I don’t find it as teachable as I’d like—or as it deserves to be. More than the other groundbreaking works from 1986, Watchmen has lost some of its verve. I have, however, included the other touchstones of 1986—The Dark Knight Returns and Maus. The former because it gives us entry into Batman and into the comics industry as a whole, the latter because it remains powerful and haunting, even with the fourth or fifth reading. Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home is the only other work I’m including that has already become part of the graphic narrative canon. It’s smart and literary, arguably too smart and too literary, but those elements make Fun Home great teaching material.

Most of the other graphic novels are gambles, texts even fans of graphic novels will probably not have encountered. These range from Lynd Ward’s bold, wordless novel, told entirely in woodcuts, to Mike Carey’s ongoing series Unwritten, whose literary ambition only slowly unfolds throughout the first dozen or so issues. I’ve never taught Ward or Carey, and I have no idea how they’ll turn out. In between these two bookends are a few works that I have taught (Asterios Polyp and Nat Turner) and a few others I haven’t (We3 and Swallow Me Whole).

Looking over my final list, I’m surprised at how non-historical it is. Heavily emphasizing works published within the last five years, this course is decidedly not an overview of the form. No, it’s an overview of something else. In every case, I selected these works because I think they have something to teach us. About storytelling, about visual artistry, about the dynamic between the two. About history, about memory, about suffering and reconciliation. And about loss, and desire, and reading, and making sense of the world.

Here then is my final list, arranged roughly in the order I envision teaching the texts:

David Mazzuccheli, Asterios Polyp, Pantheon, ISBN 978-0307377326

Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2011 MLA

Mark Sample10 Comments

Harbor FreewayRevised: This is a comprehensive list of digital humanities sessions at the 2011 MLA in Los Angeles. Many of the speakers posted the text of their talks online, and you’ll find links here to those online versions. If yours isn’t linked yet, please reply in the comments with the URL of your presentation, and I’ll add it here for archival purposes.

Thursday, 06 January

12. Labor in the Digital Humanities

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 407, LA Convention Center

Presiding: William Thompson, Western Illinois Univ.

Speakers: Mark Childs, Coventry Univ.; Tanya E. Clement, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Pomona Coll.; Amanda L. French, George Mason Univ.; Carl Stahmer, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

Members of this roundtable will address the professional and ethical issues raised by labor in and of the digital humanities. Questions open for discussion: the problem of authorship; the levels and kinds of recognition for contributions made to a project; issues regarding rights holding; problems raised by the differing institutional status of persons working on the same project; potential problems raised around distance education; and the complex questions raised by compensation, in the form of pay and in the form of accumulated symbolic capital.

For abstracts, visit http://fabtimes.net/citcafprrlabor/.

19. Digging into Data: Computational Methods of Literary Research

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Platinum Salon F, J. W. Marriott

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

1. “The Dangers and Delights of Data Mining,” Glenn H. Roe, Univ. of Chicago

2. “The Meandering through Textuality Challenge: Perspectives on the Humane Archive,” Stephen J. Ramsay, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln

3. “Exploring the Underpinnings of the Social Edition,” Raymond G. Siemens, Univ. of Victoria

29. The Brave New World of Scholarly Books: Publishing in Tempestuous Times

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 410, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Alan Rauch, Univ. of North Carolina, Charlotte

Speakers: James J. Bono, Univ. at Buffalo, State Univ. of New York; Gregory M. Britton, Getty Publications; Jennifer Crewe, Columbia Univ. Press; Leslie Mitchner, Rutgers Univ. Press; Eric Zinner, New York Univ. Press

The current status of scholarly book publishing is confusing, troubling, and yet, from some perspectives, about to embrace a new and potentially exciting digital future.  How can scholars who don’t have regular access to editors and publishers begin to sort this out? This roundtable opens up some of the questions inherent in the “crisis” in scholarly publishing and explores the very real changes, digital and fiscal, that are altering the world of scholarly books.

For online information and handouts, write to arauch@uncc.edu.

45. Getting Funded in the Humanities: A National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Workshop

1:30–3:30 p.m., 403B, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Brett Bobley, NEH; Rebecca Boggs, NEH; Sonia Feigenbaum, NEH

This workshop will highlight recent awards and outline current funding opportunities. In addition to emphasizing grant programs that support teaching, research, and public programs in the humanities, the workshop will include information on new developments, such as digital initiatives and Bridging Cultures. A question-and-answer period will follow.

48. Hacking the Profession: Academic Self-Help in an Age of Crisis

1:45–3:00 p.m., 407, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Jason B. Jones, Central Connecticut State Univ.

Speakers: Brian Croxall, Emory Univ.; Natalie M. Houston, Univ. of Houston; George H. Williams, Univ. of South Carolina, Spartanburg

This roundtable discusses how we narrate our academic lives online, whether in blogs or on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or in any other format. In particular, we are interested in how we talk about failure or, more gently, about the common problems that plague any academic life: the class that doesn’t quite work, the committee that’s driving us crazy, or the article that can’t quite find a home.

For background reading and preliminary discussion, visit www.profhacker.com after 1 Dec.

52. E-Books as Bibliographical Objects

1:45–3:00 p.m., Platinum Salon C, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Matthew Gary Kirschenbaum, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

1. “The Enkindling Reciter: Performing Reading and Concealing Texts in the E-Book Demo,” Alan Galey, Univ. of Toronto

2. “Open Objects: From Book to Nook,” Andrew Piper, McGill Univ.

3. “The Kindle Advertiser: E-Books, Advertising, and the Evanescent Edition,” Zahr Said Stauffer, Univ. of Virginia

4. “Virtual Reading on Amazon.com,” Yung-Hsing Wu, Univ. of Louisiana, Lafayette

91. Meeting in the Library: Academic Labor at the Interface

3:30–4:45 p.m., 410, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Lauren Coats, Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge; Gabrielle Dean, Johns Hopkins Univ., MD

Speakers: Anne Bruder, Bryn Mawr Coll.; Lauren Coats; Gabrielle Dean; Patricia M. Hswe, Penn State Univ., University Park; Kevin Mulroy, Univ. of California, Los Angeles; Timothy L. Stinson, North Carolina State Univ.

This roundtable will show how practices of communication, cooperation, and exchange between the traditionally segregated roles of librarian and scholar can strengthen jobs, institutions, and knowledge production. Faculty members and librarians share at least two arenas of labor, both central to academia. First, scholars and librarians need to work together to shape the methods and forms of humanities research. Second, librarians and instructors must collaborate on curricula that help students navigate, analyze, and build pathways of knowledge. Focusing on these two issues, the roundtable will consider how the library can serve as the interface where collaboration occurs and where academic labor can be productively transformed.

125. Literary Research in/and Digital Humanities

3:30–4:45 p.m., Diamond Salon 1, J. W. Marriott

Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Libraries and Research in Languages and Literatures

Speakers: Heather Bowlby, Univ. of Virginia; Marija Dalbello, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick; Amy Earhart, Texas A&M Univ., College Station; Manuel M. Martin-Rodriguez, Univ. of California, Merced; Susanne Woods, Wheaton Coll., MA; Abby Yochelson, Library of Congress

Respondent: Robert H. Kieft, Occidental Coll.

This session is the inaugural meeting of a new interdisciplinary MLA discussion group formed by librarians in the association for the discussion of matters of mutual interest with scholars. Panelists will present current work, and the group will discuss its future and how it can promote the creation and curation of scholarly collections and archives, publications, research data, and teaching and study tools through professional associations and on their own campuses.

For abstracts, visit http://guides.library.umass.edu/MLA2011.

140. What Is “College Level Writing” in the Twenty-First Century?

5:15–6:30 p.m., 410, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Les Perelman, Massachusetts Inst. of Tech.

1. “Local Values, Global Perspectives: College Writing at Hispanic-Serving Institutions,” Jolivette Mecenas, Univ. of La Verne

2. “Writing in the Era of the Shadow Elite: The Twilight of the Professions and the Rebirth of the Public Sphere,” Kurt Spellmeyer, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick

3. “Negotiating College-Level Writing in New Media in the Writing Center,” Kate Pantelides, Univ. of South Florida

141. New Thresholds of Interpretation? Paratexts in the Digital Age

5:15–6:30 p.m., Platinum Salon F, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Dorothee Birke, Freiburg Inst. for Advanced Studies

1. “Bootleg Paratextuality and Media Aesthetics: Decay and Distortion in the Borat DVD,” Paul Benzon, Temple Univ., Philadelphia

2. “The Amazon Phenomenon: New Contextual Paratexts of Historiographic Narratives,” Julia Lippert, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

3. “Peritexts and Epitexts in Transitional Electronic Literature: Readers and Paratextual Engagement on Kindles, iPods, and Netbooks,” Ellen M. McCracken, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

150. New Tools, Hard Times: Social Networking and the Academic Crisis

5:15–6:30 p.m., 406A, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Meredith L. McGill, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick

Speakers: Rosemary G. Feal, MLA

Marc Bousquet, Santa Clara Univ.

Brian Croxall, Emory Univ.

Christopher John Newfield, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

Marilee Lindemann, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

This roundtable will examine what role the tools of social networking (e.g., blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube) have played in organizing and communicating about the economic crisis in higher education. One of the goals of the panel will be practical: to share tips and strategies about what works and what doesn’t (and to think critically about how we judge the effectiveness of any particular tool or strategy). Another will be reflective: to provide an opportunity for weighing the benefits and the risks of scholars using these tools to perform work that is often more in the mode of public or professional advocacy than scholarship in the traditional sense.

Friday, 07 January

185. Planet Wiki? Postcolonial Theory, Social Media, and Web 2.0

8:30–9:45 a.m., 406A, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Amit Ray, Rochester Inst. of Tech.

1. “Border Politics on YouTube: Heriberto Yépez’s ‘Voice Exchange Rates’ (or the Bodies That Antimatter),” Tomás Urayoán Noel, Univ. at Albany, State Univ. of New York

2. “Truths of Times to Come: Deleuze, Media, India,” Amitabh Rai, Florida State Univ.

3. “Remapping the Space In-Between: Social Networks of Race, Class, and Digital Media in the Brazilian City,” Justin Andrew Read, Univ. at Buffalo, State Univ. of New York

193. New (and Renewed) Work in Digital Literary Studies: An Electronic Roundtable

8:30–9:45 a.m., Plaza I, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Bethany Nowviskie, Univ. of Virginia

Speakers: Ernest Cole, Hope Coll.; Randall Cream, Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia; Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Pomona Coll.; Joseph Gilbert, Univ. of Virginia; Laura C. Mandell, Miami Univ., Oxford; William Albert Pannapacker, Hope Coll.; Douglas Reside, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Andrew M. Stauffer, Univ. of Virginia; John A. Walsh, Indiana Univ., Bloomington; Matthew Wilkens, Rice Univ.

Projects, groups, and initiatives highlighted in this session build on the editorial and archival roots of humanities scholarship to offer new, explicitly methodological and interpretive contributions to the digital literary scene or to intervene in established patterns of scholarly communication and pedagogical practice. Brief introductions will be followed by simultaneous demonstrations of the presenters’ work at eight computer stations.

For project links and abstracts, visit http://ach.org/mla/mla11/.

218. Analog and Digital: Texts, Contexts, and Networks

10:15–11:30 a.m., Atrium I, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Victoria E. Szabo, Duke Univ.

1. “Digital Networks and Horizontal Textuality,” David S. Roh, Old Dominion Univ.

2. “The Work of the Text in Haggard’s She: Full-Text Searching and Networks of Association,” Robert Steele, George Washington Univ.

3. “Taken Possession Of: What Digital Archives Can Teach Us about Nathaniel Hawthorne, Religious Readers, and Antebellum Reprinting Culture,” Ryan C. Cordell, Univ. of Virginia

For abstracts, visit www.duke.edu/~ves4/mla2011.

233. Transmedia Activism

10:15–11:30 a.m., Diamond Salon 6, J. W. Marriott

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

Speakers: Anne Balsamo, Univ. of Southern California; Ben Caldwell, Los Angeles, CA; Radhika Gajjala, Bowling Green State Univ.; Henry Jenkins, Univ. of Southern California; Toby Miller, Univ. of California, Riverside

This roundtable considers how transmedia practices advance activism around matters of social justice, critical literacy, and responsible artistic expressions. All the panelists are involved in current media activism and pedagogy projects.

235. Old Media

10:15–11:30 a.m., Olympic III, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Kate Flint, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick

1. “(Post)Imperial Media,” Aaron S. Worth, Boston Univ.

2. “Hieroglyphics and the Writing/Media Divide,” Jesse Schotter, Yale Univ.

3. “Aldous Huxley and the Hazards of Writing Technologies,” Emily James, Univ. of Washington, Seattle

4. “The Tachistoscope and Digital Literature,” Jessica Pressman, Yale Univ.

248. The Dictionary in Print and in the Cloud

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Olympic I, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Michael Hancher, Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Speakers: Tim Cassedy, New York Univ.; David L. Porter, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Glenn H. Roe, Univ. of Chicago; Robert Steele, George Washington Univ. For abstracts, visit http://mh.cla.umn.edu/MLA.pdf.

282. Paper as Platform or Interface

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Olympic III, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Lisa Gitelman, New York Univ.

1. “The Word Made Flax: Cheap Bibles, Textual Corruption, and the Poetics of Paper,” Joshua Calhoun, Univ. of Delaware, Newark

2. “The Theory of Paper: Hume, Beattie, Derrida,” Christina Lupton, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor

3. “The Wordsworths’ Daffodils: On the Page, upon the Inward Eye,” Richard Menke, Univ. of Georgia

296. Technology-Enhanced Delivery Models in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching

1:45–3:00 p.m., Platinum Salon A, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Fernando Rubio, Univ. of Utah; Joshua Thoms, Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge

1. “Options in Instructional Modeling: Meeting the Demand for Spanish in Demanding Times,” Diane Musumeci, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana

2. “What CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) Offers for the L2 Curriculum,” Robert James Blake, Univ. of California, Davis

For abstracts, visit www.aausc.org/Default.aspx?pageId=236781.

305. Silent Night: The Archives of the Deaf and Blind

1:45–3:00 p.m., Atrium I, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Marta L. Werner, D’Youville Coll.

1. “Entering the Light: Deaf Studies Digital Journal and the Archives of Sign Language Poetics,” H-Dirksen Bauman, Gallaudet Univ.

2. “Blindness and Exile in the ‘Dark Blue World’ of Jaroslav Jezek,” Michael Beckerman, New York Univ.

3. “Accessioning Helen Keller: Disability, History, and the Politics of the Archive,” David Serlin, Univ. of California, San Diego

309. The History and Future of the Digital Humanities

1:45–3:00 p.m., Plaza I, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Pomona Coll.

Speakers: Brett Bobley, NEH; Katherine D. Harris, San José State Univ.; Alan Liu, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Tara McPherson, Univ. of Southern California; Bethany Nowviskie, Univ. of Virginia; Stephen J. Ramsay, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln; Susana Ruiz, Univ. of Southern California

This roundtable will bring together many different perspectives, from humanities computing to digital media studies, including senior and junior scholars, research and teaching institutions, and faculty and staff members, so that we might explore the overlap, diffusion, and multiplicity of views of the digital humanities that result.

331. The Open Professoriat: Public Intellectuals on the Social Web

3:30–4:45 p.m., Plaza I, J. W. Marriott

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

Speakers: Samuel Cohen, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia; Amanda L. French, George Mason Univ. on Open Source and Readership; David Parry, Univ. of Texas, Dallas; Mark L. Sample, George Mason Univ. on Tactical Collaboration; Erin Templeton, Converse Coll. on Public Intellectuals and the Social Web; Elizabeth Vincelette, Old Dominion Univ.

This panel will explore the range of possibilities surrounding the use of social media in many aspects of academic life, with particular attention to the ways in which they can help broaden the audience for academic work at a time of economic and institutional crisis in the academy.

349. From N-Town to YouTube: Medieval Drama on Film, Video, and the Web

3:30–4:45 p.m., 306A, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Victor Ivan Scherb, Univ. of Texas, Tyler

1. “Queer Desire in the York Cycle and the York Festival Trust Plays,” Mary Hayes, Univ. of Mississippi

2. “Page to Stage: Film Footage and the Teaching of Medieval Drama,” Maren Clegg Hyer, Valdosta State Univ.

3. “Making a Magnyfycent Film: Representing Medieval Drama in a Digital Age,” Maria Sachiko Cecire, Bard Coll.

For abstracts, visit http://mrds.eserver.org/.

385. Endangered Languages, Language Documentation, and Digital Humanities

5:15–6:30 p.m., 404A, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Marnie Jo Petray, California Polytechnic State Univ., San Luis Obispo

1. “Predicting the Syntactic Complexity of Newly Recognized Yipho-Ngwi Languages,” Eric Drewry, Azusa Pacific Univ.

2. “Eliciting Phonetic Data in the Field for Language Documentation,” Seunghun J. Lee, Central Connecticut State Univ.

3. “From Data Collection to Data Organization: A Brief Overview of the Challenges of Doing Fieldwork in Linguistics,” Jose Alberto Elias-Ulloa, Stony Brook Univ., State Univ. of New York

For abstracts, write to leeseu@ccsu.edu.

397. The Lives That Digital Archives Write

5:15–6:30 p.m., Plaza I, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Ruth E. Mack, Univ. at Buffalo, State Univ. of New York

1. “Social Networking in the Enlightenment,” Dan M. Edelstein, Stanford Univ.

2. “Working Lives from Digital Sources: London 1690–1800,” Tim Hitchcock, Univ. of Hertfordshire; Robert Shoemaker, Univ. of Sheffield

3. “Mapping the Social Text: Topography, Letters, and Alexander Pope,” Allison Muri, Univ. of Saskatchewan

Saturday, 08 January

431. Textual Scholarship and New Media

8:30–9:45 a.m., Diamond Salon 8, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Michael Eberle-Sinatra, Université de Montréal

1. “Comic Book Markup Language: An Introduction and Rationale,” John A. Walsh, Indiana Univ., Bloomington

2. “Crowdspeak: Mobile Telephony and TXTual Practice,” Rita Raley, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

3. “Alternate Reality Games and Transmedia Textuality: Interpretive Play and the Immaterial Archive,” Zach Whalen, Univ. of Mary Washington

436. The Institution(alization) of Digital Humanities

8:30–9:45 a.m., Atrium III, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: David Lee Gants, Florida State Univ.

1. “A Media Ecological Approach to Digital Humanities; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love This Dynamic Field,” Kimberly Knight, Univ. of Texas, Dallas

2. “Power, Prestige, and Profession: Digital Humanities in the Age of Academic Anxiety,” Amy Earhart, Texas A&M Univ., College Station

3. “Emerging Dialogue: Librarians and Digital Humanists,” Johanna Drucker, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

462. Foreign Language Cultural Literacy and Web 2.0

10:15–11:30 a.m., 304C, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Charlotte Ann Melin, Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities

1. “Translingual and Transcultural Hospitality: On Derridean Dilemmas of Pedagogy and Digital Practices, and Some Solutions,” Glenn S. Levine, Univ. of California, Irvine

2. “The Stanford Nonnative Rapper Contest: Showcasing Transcultural Competences Using Collaborative Social Media Frameworks,” Joseph Kautz, Stanford Univ.; Per Urlaub, Univ. of Texas, Austin

3. “In the Favela with Web 2.0: A Collaborative Web-Based Language and Culture Exchange Project,” Evan Rubin, San Diego State Univ.

474. Social Networking: Web 2.0 Applications for the Teaching of Languages and Literatures

10:15–11:30 a.m., Diamond Salon 2, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Barbara Lafford, Arizona State Univ. West

1. “Writing for Nonprofits in Social-Media Environments,” Sean McCarthy, Univ. of Texas, Austin

2. “The Macaulay Eportfolio Collection: A Case Study in the Uses of Social Networking for Learning,” Lauren Klein, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York

3. “Social Media, Digital Vernaculars, and Language Education,” Steven Thorne, Portland State Univ.

For abstracts, write to blafford@asu.edu.

493. The Archive and the Aesthetic: Methodologies of American Literary Studies

10:15–11:30 a.m., Diamond Salon 8, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Northeastern Univ.

1. “Archive Anxieties and Print Culture,” Nancy Glazener, Univ. of Pittsburgh

2. “The New New Historicism: Electronic Archives and Aesthetic Judgment,” Maurice Sherwood Lee, Boston Univ.

3. “Historical Oversights: Ambivalence and Judgment in the Age of Archival Reproducibility,” John Funchion, Univ. of Miami

505. Lives and Archives in Graphic and Digital Modes

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Platinum Salon C, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Julia Watson, Ohio State Univ., Columbus

1. “Comics Form and Narrating Lives,” Hillary L. Chute, Harvard Univ.

2. “Automedial Ghosts,” Brian Rotman, Ohio State Univ., Columbus

3. “What Is Worth Saving? The Salvage Work of Comics,” Theresa Tensuan, Haverford Coll.

521. Close Reading the Digital

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Atrium I, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Jeremy Douglass, Univ. of California, San Diego

1. “The Code of Hacktavism: A Critical Code Study Case Study,” Mark Marino, Univ. of Southern California

2. “Close Reading Campaign Rhetorics: Procedurality and MyBarackObama.com,” James J. Brown, Wayne State Univ.

3. “Criminal Code: The Procedural Logic of Crime in Video Games,” Mark L. Sample, George Mason Univ.

Respondent: Matthew Gary Kirschenbaum, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

For abstracts, visit http://criticalcodestudies.com/mla2011 after 1 Dec.

532. Electronic Lives

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Plaza III, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Alison Booth, Univ. of Virginia

1. “Autotweetography: Producing and Consuming Identity on Social-Network Sites,” Laurie McNeill, Univ. of British Columbia

2. “Invisible Syndromes: Virtual Biomedical Communities, Self-Monitoring, and Narratives of the Self,” Olivia Banner, Rice Univ.

3. “The Child as Pornographer,” Ellis Hanson, Cornell Univ.

541. Electronic Literature: Off the Screen

1:45–3:00 p.m., Plaza II, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Jessica Pressman, Yale Univ.

1. “A Pixel or a Grain of Sand: Jenny Holzer’s Projections,” Leisha J. Jones, Penn State Univ., University Park

2. “Locative Narrative: Reorganizing Space in Mobile E-Literature,” Mark Marino, Univ. of Southern California

3. “E-Literature as Event: Seeing Space and Time in Kinetic Typography,” Jeremy Douglass, Univ. of California, San Diego

For abstracts, write to jessica.pressman@yale.edu.

577. Print Culture and Undergraduate Literary Study

1:45–3:00 p.m., Platinum Salon A, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Lisa Gitelman, New York Univ.

1. “Using Early English Books Online in the Undergraduate Classroom,” Joanne Diaz, Illinois Wesleyan Univ.

2. “Benjamin Franklin’s Compositions,” Jonathan Senchyne, Cornell Univ.

3. “Not Necessarily Natives: Teaching Digital Media with Book Technology (and Vice Versa),” Lisa Marie Maruca, Wayne State Univ.

Respondent: David Lee Gants, Florida State Univ.

For abstracts, visit www.sharpweb.org/ after 15 Dec.

596. Will Publications Perish? The Paradigm Shift in Scholarly Communication

3:30–4:45 p.m., Plaza I, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Alan Rauch, Univ. of North Carolina, Charlotte

Speakers: Cheryl E. Ball, Illinois State Univ.; Leslie Kreiner Wilson, Pepperdine Univ.; Laurence D. Roth, Susquehanna Univ.; Andrew M. Stauffer, Univ. of Virginia

The scholarly essay, once the coin of the realm in academia, is being transformed by digital technologies. Questions about the future viability of learned journals, to say nothing of practices such as peer review, confront us all. This session is an effort to deal with those questions directly and initiate a dialogue about how various branches of the scholarly community can respond to ongoing and inevitable challenges.

For talking points, visit www.alanrauch.com/perish.html.

606. Methods of Research in New Media

3:30–4:45 p.m., Platinum Salon J, J. W. Marriott

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

1. “Be Online or Be Irrelevant,” David Parry, Univ. of Texas, Dallas

2. “Applied Media Theory: Where Digital Art Meets Humanities Research,” Marcel O’Gorman, Univ. of Waterloo

3. “Augmenting Fiction: Storytelling, Locative Media, and the New Media Lab,” Carolyn Guertin, Univ. of Texas, Arlington

617. Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) and the Scholarly Edition

5:15–6:30 p.m., Diamond Salon 8, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Paul Werstine, Univ. of Western Ontario

Speakers: Michael Choi, Univ. of Western Ontario; Stan Ruecker, Univ. of Alberta; Raymond G. Siemens, Univ. of Victoria

Topics for discussion will include bringing architectures of the book into the digital age, introducing the dynamic table of contexts for the online scholarly edition, and supporting the scholarly edition in electronic form.

619. Ecocriticism beyond Literature

5:15–6:30 p.m., 410, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Allison Carruth, Univ. of Oregon

1. “Postcolonial Ecologies: Alterity and the Genealogies of Ecocriticism,” Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

2. “Ecocriticism and the Database Aesthetic,” Ursula K. Heise, Stanford Univ.

3. “Out of Our Depths: Oceanic Challenges to Environmental Theory and Animal Studies,” Stacy Alaimo, Univ. of Texas, Arlington

4. “Computer-Aided Design and the Future Green City,” Allison Carruth

For abstracts, visit www.uoregon.edu/~acarruth/ after 2 Jan.

639. Where’s the Pedagogy in Digital Pedagogy?

5:15–6:30 p.m., Platinum Salon F, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Nirmal H. Trivedi, Georgia Inst. of Tech.

Speakers: Danielle Barrios, Univ. of Ulster; Kristine Blair, Bowling Green State Univ.; Joy Bracewell, Univ. of Georgia; Andrew Famiglietti, Georgia Inst. of Tech.; Antero Garcia, Univ. of California, Los Angeles; Jill Marie Parrott, Univ. of Georgia; Christine Tulley, Univ. of Findlay

This session will share the great number of practical and philosophical questions surrounding what it means to “teach digitally” today. We want to focus attention away from “toolism”—a preoccupation with new technologies for the sake of newness and technical power—and direct attention toward the pedagogy that technology and collaboration can unveil.

For abstracts, write to nirmal.trivedi@lcc.gatech.edu.

THATCamp LA Gathering

8:00-10 p.m., Olympic 1, J.W. Marriott

Sunday, 09 January

743. What the Digital Does to Reading

10:15–11:30 a.m., Diamond Salon 8, J. W. Marriott

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

1. “What Would Jesus Google? Plural Reading in the Digital Archive,” Daniel Allen Shore, Grinnell Coll.

2. “Social Book Catalogs and Reading: Shifting Paradigms, Humanizing Databases,” Renee Hudson, Univ. of California, Los Angeles; Kimberly Knight, Univ. of Texas, Dallas

3. “Illuminating Hidden Paths: Reading and Annotating Texts in Many Dimensions,” Julie Meloni, Washington State Univ., Pullman

For abstracts, visit www.users.muohio.edu/mandellc/digRdg.html after 15 Nov.

752. Literature and/as New Media

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 309, LA Convention Center

Presiding: Jon McKenzie, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

Speakers: Sarah Allison, Stanford Univ.; N. Katherine Hayles, Duke Univ.; Richard E. Miller, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick; Todd Samuel Presner, Univ. of California, Los Angeles; Craig J. Saper, Univ. of Central Florida; Holly Willis, Univ. of Southern California; Michael L. Witmore, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

This session engages the nexus of literature and new media from several perspectives, ranging from emerging forms of electronic literature to computer-enabled modes of literary analysis to the broader implications of IT and new media for literary and cultural study. In an age of digital poetry, graphic novels, and iPhone “appisodes,” how useful is the notion of distinct media? In what ways do quantitative methods of “distant reading” and “counting literature” extend traditional forms of analysis, and in what ways do they threaten or simply sidestep them? And what’s at stake in recent calls to critically mash up new media forms and processes in order to reboot the humanities as “new humanities,” “Big Humanities,” and “Humanities 2.0”?

753. Sustainable Publishing

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Plaza III, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Uppinder Mehan, Univ. of Houston, Victoria

1. “New Stationary States,” Brian Lennon, Penn State Univ., University Park

2. “Sustainable Publishing: The Dead-End of the Print/Digital Binary,” Robert Philip Marzec, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette

3. “The Publishing Junkyard,” Jeffrey R. Di Leo, Univ. of Houston, Victoria

For papers, visit http://societyforcriticalexchange.org.

792. Sound Reproduction and the Literary

1:45–3:00 p.m., Diamond Salon 6, J. W. Marriott

Presiding: Jentery Sayers, Univ. of Washington, Seattle

1. “Sound as Sensory Modality in Electronic Literature,” Dene M. Grigar, Washington State Univ., Vancouver

2. “‘Cause That’s the Way the World Turns’: John Edgar Wideman’s Sent for You Yesterday and the Mnemonic Jukebox,” Jürgen E. Grandt, Gainesville State Coll., GA

3. “Analog History: Kevin Young’s To Repel Ghosts and the Textuality of the Turntable,” Paul Benzon, Temple Univ., Philadelphia

For abstracts, examples, and biographies, visit www.hastac.org/ after 1 Dec.

Following the MLA Conference

THATCamp SoCal

January 11-12 at Chapman University in Orange, California

ENGL 685 (Graphic Novels) Reading List

Mark Sample1 Comment

I always agonize over which books to teach during any given semester. It’s not for a lack of possibilities. Indeed, there are always too many choices, too many great books to teach in the fields of postmodern literature and experimental literature. And I always want to get the syllabus just right for my students, balancing the absolute must-reads in the field with more obscure but just as rich texts. My upcoming graduate class in graphic novels has been particularly difficult. There is an embarrassment of riches in graphic narrative and at some point the selection seems to become arbitrary.

That said, my finalized reading list for ENGL 685 (Graphic Novels) does have a few thematic contours. And though I’m well aware of the many gaps and missing texts, I’m excited about the list and am looking forward to the course.

Here, then, is the primary reading list for ENGL 685 (Fall 2010), organized thematically:

Rethinking Superheroes

Memory, History, and Memoir

Love Stories and Hate Stories

There will be many other  readings for the course—book excerpts, journal articles, webcomics, and so on—but these thirteen selections will form the heart of ENGL 685.

Gaiman and I

Mark Sample5 Comments

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.

A Tale of Two MLA Bibliographies

Mark Sample9 Comments

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.
[polldaddy poll=2485235]

The MLA in Tweets

Mark Sample7 Comments

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

Mark Sample9 Comments

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).

The Modern Language Association Wishes Away Digital Différance

Mark Sample12 Comments

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

Mark Sample7 Comments

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.

A History of Choose Your Own Adventure Visualizations

Mark Sample10 Comments

Every six months or so it seems as if the entire Internet discovers for the first time that people are making data visualizations of the Choose Your Own Adventure books that were popular in the early eighties. Computer scientist Christian Swinehart’s stunning visualizations are only the most recent to capture the imagination of scores of old fans, academics, and data fanatics.

Here then is a brief history of these CYOA maps:

September 2003 Andrew Stern maps a CYOA-inspired book (Night of a Thousand Boyfriends) on the group-blog Grand Text Auto. As far as I can determine, Stern’s is the ur-map, the CYOA map that started it all. Stern modestly calls his rudimentary hand-drawn map “a fun exercise,” but as the CYOA visualizations he inspired increase in complexity over time, Stern’s map is revealed to be visionary.

April 2004 Inspired directly by Stern, Matthew Kirschenbaum assigns a CYOA mapping assignment to undergraduate students in his Computer and Text course at the University of Maryland. One of Matt’s goals is to test the assumption that electronic literature is “simply a souped-up version of CYOA.”

December 2004 Greg Lord, one of Kirschenbaum’s students from the Fall 2004 section of Computer and Text, creates an interactive map of The Third Planet from Altair (CYOA #7). It is the most visually sophisticated map so far, and Lord’s analysis of the book’s various kinds of paths is especially thoughtful.

September 2005 I borrow Kirschenbaum’s assignment and revise it for a class at George Mason University on new media. As an example for my students, I map the first book in the series, The Cave of Time (CYOA #1). My own inter­est in the map­ping of these books lies in the moral struc­ture embed­ded within the nov­els, in which cer­tain choices are rewarded and oth­ers are not. I’m also fas­ci­nated by the assumptions the books make about what con­sti­tutes a failed or sat­is­fy­ing end­ing.

March 2008 Sean Ragan turns The Mystery of Chimney Rock (CYOA #5) into a directed graph. Ragan uses AT&T’s open source Graphviz software for his map, which takes a simple text file of options (e.g. “3 -> 4, 3-> 6) and compiles them into a diagram.

September 2008 My GMU students map CYOA books for a class on ergodic literature (ergodic: a neologism coined by Espen Aarseth to describe literature that requires non-trivial choices from the reader). The assignment is a revision of the September 2005 assignment, and I connect it to Franco Moretti’s idea of a “distant reading” of literature.

July 2009 Designer Michael Niggel creates an analysis of paths and outcomes of Journey Under the Sea (CYOA #2). Niggel finds that over 75 percent of the book’s endings are unfavorable (50 percent will actually end in death).

November 2009 Christian Swinehart offers multiple data views of twelve CYOA books, a project that took 13 months to complete. Swinehart’s project is in effect a longitudinal study of CYOA’s evolution, showing that later books were more linear and offered fewer endings.

Conclusions?

Given the recurring interest in these maps from both literature professors and computer scientists, I imagine we haven’t seen the last of these maps. I also imagine the trend to treat CYOA books as data sets will intensify. And as data sets, they can be manipulated in novel and ingenious ways, in which subtle patterns can be extracted, patterns which may tell us a great deal about what we humans like and don’t like in the sto­ries we tell our­selves about ourselves.

Updates on David Foster Wallace review by Jay Murray Siskind

Mark Sample

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education for a story about the fake David Foster Wallace review in Modernism/Modernity. The Chronicle story is online and at least for the first week, not behind a paywall. I was in Spain at the time, so for the interview I had to negotiate the nine hour time difference with Peter Monaghan, the Chronicle reporter. Peter graciously stayed up late, interviewing me at 1:30am his time in Seattle.

Also, the folks over at HTMLGIANT have the original email exchange between myself and the graduate student who inadvertently alerted me to the fake review by citing it as real. (They published the emails with both my and the graduate student’s permission.)

Electronic Literature is a Foreign Land

Mark Sample2 Comments

One of the more brilliant works of electronic literature I savor teaching is Brian Kim Stefan’s Star Wars, One Letter at a Time, which is exactly what it sounds like. Aside what’s going on in the piece itself (which deserves its own separate blog post), what I enjoy is the almost violent reaction it provokes in students.  Undergraduate and graduate students alike are incredibly resistant to SWOLAAT, in most cases flat-out denying any claims Stefan’s reworking of Star Wars might make toward literariness.

The dismissive response of my students to SWOLAAT is only the most extreme example of what happens with many pieces of electronic literature, both in my classroom and in the wider world. For example, I’ve been reading through Johanna Drucker’s review of Matthew Kirschenbaum’s groundbreaking Mechanisms, as well as the e-lit community’s reaction to her statement that no works have “appeared in digital media whose interest goes beyond novelty value.” A bit aghast at Drucker’s remark, Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Scott Rettberg have both responded, and I was struck by Rettberg’s observation that

ELO [The Electronic Literature Organization] has submitted a number of very good digital humanities grant proposals to the NEH, and we have had the same response nearly every time — on a panel of three reviewers, two will find the proposal worth funding, and one of whom will state flatly that it has no merit, not on the basis of the proposal itself or its relevance to the call, but because they find electronic literature itself to be without merit.

It occurred to me recently that the denial of electronic literature’s literary merit — whether it’s coming from my students or a distinguished NEH panel — is not due to a misplaced desire to preserve the sanctity of what counts as literature as it is sheer xenophobia.

Electronic literature is a foreign land.

Electronic literature might as well be the national literature of Moldavia. To the uninitiated student or scholar, e-lit is at worst strange, incomprehensible, and inscrutable, and at best, simply silly.

So, I’m wondering, would the same process by which a stranger in a strange land grows accustomed to foreignness and even appreciates and incorporates cultural difference into his or her own life — could that process apply to e-lit?

Below (larger image) is a six stage model of intercultural sensitivity, designed by Milton J. Bennett in the late eighties and early nineties to describe the progress of individuals as they experience greater and more frequent cultural difference. And I think this model could help us introduce students to the foreign world of electronic literature.

Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity

In the early ethnocentric stages of Bennett’s model, individuals begin by first denying that cultural difference exists in the first place, either because of their own isolation or because of willful ignorance. Greater exposure to cultural difference next prompts a defensive posture, an us-versus-them mentality in which existing cognitive categories are reinforced and any comment directed toward one’s own culture is perceived as an attack. The last ethnocentric stage is characterized by a minimization of difference. Individuals tell themselves that “people are the same everywhere,” a superficially benign attitude that in fact masks uniqueness and still evaluates other cultures from a reference point within one’s own culture. The final three stages are marked by an understanding that behaviors, norms, beliefs and so on are all relative. The first ethnorelative stage is acceptance, genuinely acknowledging cultural difference and seeing that difference within its own cultural context. Next comes adaptation, when individuals change their own attitudes, behaviors, and even language to match their surroundings in an attempt to communicate and empathize. Finally, integration occurs when individuals move freely between cultures, practicing what Bennett calls “constructive marginality,” that is, seeing identity construction as an ongoing process that is always marginal to any specific social group.

If we think of electronic literature as a foreign land, then I propose we use this developmental model to accurately chart a stranger’s encounter with the genre. As my experience with Star Wars, One Letter at a Time illustrates, students first begin reading electronic literature in either the denial or defense stages (meaning they’ve either never experienced e-lit before or they have and they hate it). I can imagine an entire syllabus structured around the goal of moving students from denial to integration. Just as educators and sociologists have come up with practical strategies to facilitate the progress of study abroad students along Bennett’s continuum, so too can we design specific assignments that develop students’ competencies in each of these stages: from a total inability to read the differences between traditional literature and born digital literature to an integration of those very differences into their non-e-lit lives. And with each point in between, we target stage-appropriate skills and practices, meeting the students where they are, rather than expecting them to reflexively appreciate the virtues of something as alien as Reiner Strasser and M.D Coverley’s ii: in the white darkness or something as unsettling as Jason Nelson’s This Is How You Will Die. This type of approach to teaching electronic literature would be far more rewarding (to both the professor and the students) than the kind of sink-or-swim model in Katherine Hayle’s theoretically dense (and unteachable, as I’ve discovered) introduction to Electronic Literature.

Imagine too that we begin writing grant and publishing proposals with these stages in mind, understanding that committees and panels and editors are likely stuck in the ethnocentric stages, judging literature from what we might call the “Great Works” perspective. E-lit challenges this perspective, but not on grounds of literariness; it challenges existing notions of literature simply because it’s different. We can teach sensitivity to difference to our students, and we should model sensitivity in our own writings as well. Teachers and researchers of electronic literature are its ambassadors, and it is up to us to introduce strangers to the medium in a firm, but welcoming, guiding way.

The truth behind Jay Murray Siskind’s review of David Foster Wallace

Mark Sample6 Comments

And finally, the wink and nod I’ve been looking for. Laurence Rainey, the editor of Modernism/Modernity, and Nicole Devarenne, the former managing editor of Modernism/Modernity, sent me this open letter today:

An Open Letter to Mark Sample,

We appreciate your recent remarks concerning a review essay about David Foster Wallace, one that appeared in late 2004 in the pages of Modernism/Modernity and was assigned to one Jay Murray Siskind, also the name of a character in Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise. It is saddening indeed to see the review being cited with po-faced earnestness, and surely you are right that this turns “a fun fake review into something much more telling about the state of academia.” All too plainly, the time has come to set the record straight.

As the journal’s book review editors at the time, we were at first disconcerted to receive an email from Jay Murray Siskind. Our suspicions were heightened when we noted that his email address read “blacksmith.edu,” rather than the better known College-on-the-Hill, where Murray was last seen working. But research soon revealed that his change in academic affiliation was the result of a bitter tenure decision fight, in which Alfonse Stompanato had played an especially unsavoury role. Still, Murray’s homepage is available to anyone who wishes to imagine it. And his competence in popular culture is amply documented by his essays in publications such as the American Transvestite and Ufology, not to mention Brüno. Who were we to reject the offer of a review from a respected and even popular colleague?  Who but a fictional character could be better qualified to review . . . well, new fiction? Isn’t that the very essence of peer reviewing? It should also have come as no surprise to anyone that Jay Murray Siskind’s writing should have sounded like Jay Murray Siskind’s writing, in much the same way we might expect that the writing of Pierre Menard, author of the Quijote, to sound much like Don Quijote. Of course we took seriously our role as editors. We toned down a fawning reference (“the most important study since Das Kapital”) to the book that Murray co-authored with J.A.K. Gladney, Adolph and Elvis: Two Twentieth-Century Men and Their Mothers. We also removed a plainly vengeful mention of Alphonse Stompanato’s book, Crunching Granola: The Semiotics of the Cereal Box (“drivel that positively drivels”). But apart from that, the essay stands as Murray wrote it–perhaps the impish product of an impish mood that relieved the tedium of editing the turgid, academic prose that appears in Ufology, where he serves on the Advisory Board.

Yes, we agree that further investigation is urgently required to clarify the entire affair. Perhaps help can be sought from Daniel Quinn, the noted employee of the Auster Detective Agency. If so, he should get to work, or Max Work, immediately. If not, the affair will remain shrouded in a cloud of unknowing.

Finally, in one of the posts to your piece, you highlighted “the fact that Modernism/Modernity doesn’t concern itself with someone like Wallace.” Alas, M/M was the first academic journal anywhere to publish an extended tribute to Wallace after his untimely death, which included pieces by Dave Eggers, Michael North, and Marshall Boswell. (See Modernism/Modernity 16.1, January 2009: 1-24.) The alleged rupture between modernism and postmodernism is one urged only by the simple-, not to be confused with the Sample-, minded.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence Rainey, Editor of Modernism/Modernity

Nicole Devarenne, former Managing Editor of Modernism/Modernity

And here is a copy of the actual letter:

[scribd id=17482549 key=key-1u543771oh25lc02uw0a]

Obviously, then, the whole review was written with — and continues to generate — a sense of humor, something that is sadly lacking from most academic publishing venues. “Hoax” was probably too strong of a word to use to describe the bogus review — until, that is, inexpert readers began taking it seriously.

Here is my response to Professor Rainey:

Dear Professor Rainey,

I appreciate the insider’s perspective, as well as the full details of Siskind’s rocky tenure process. I had heard Stompanato was difficult to work with, but I had no idea. And of course, I’m pleased to see Siskind branching out beyond the stagnant confines of Ufology. When Siskind left Manhattan for College-on-the-Hill, we lost a wonderful sportswriter, but gained a marvelous intellect. And his beard. What an incredibly important beard.

All the best,

Mark Sample

I have to rethink my characterization of the journal as an inscrutable monolith (I just love the phrase, though). In the meantime, if we can only get unsuspecting undergraduate and graduate students to distinguish between serious scholarly conversations and playful ones. (Or even better, is there a way that we can all learn better to mix the two, and use both at once?)

An Open Letter to Mark Sample,

We appreciate your recent remarks concerning a review essay about David Foster Wallace, one that appeared in late 2004 in the pages of Modernism/Modernity and was assigned to one Jay Murray Siskind, also the name of a character in Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise. It is saddening indeed to see the review being cited with po-faced earnestness, and surely you are right that this turns “a fun fake review into something much more telling about the state of academia.” All too plainly, the time has come to set the record straight.

As the journal’s book review editors at the time, we were at first disconcerted to receive an email from Jay Murray Siskind. Our suspicions were heightened when we noted that his email address read “blacksmith.edu,” rather than the better known College-on-the-Hill, where Murray was last seen working. But research soon revealed that his change in academic affiliation was the result of a bitter tenure decision fight, in which Alfonse Stompanato had played an especially unsavoury role. Still, Murray’s homepage is available to anyone who wishes to imagine it. And his competence in popular culture is amply documented by his essays in publications such as the American Transvestite and Ufology, not to mention Brüno. Who were we to reject the offer of a review from a respected and even popular colleague? Who but a fictional character could be better qualified to review . . . well, new fiction? Isn’t that the very essence of peer reviewing? It should also have come as no surprise to anyone that Jay Murray Siskind’s writing should have sounded like Jay Murray Siskind’s writing, in much the same way we might expect that the writing of Pierre Menard, author of the Quijote, to sound much like Don Quijote. Of course we took seriously our role as editors. We toned down a fawning reference (“the most important study since Das Kapital”) to the book that Murray co-authored with J.A.K. Gladney, Adolph and Elvis: Two Twentieth-Century Men and Their Mothers. We also removed a plainly vengeful mention of Alphonse Stompanato’s book, Crunching Granola: The Semiotics of the Cereal Box (“drivel that positively drivels”). But apart from that, the essay stands as Murray wrote it–perhaps the impish product of an impish mood that relieved the tedium of editing the turgid, academic prose that appears in Ufology, where he serves on the Advisory Board.

Yes, we agree that further investigation is urgently required to clarify the entire affair. Perhaps help can be sought from Daniel Quinn, the noted employee of the Auster Detective Agency. If so, he should get to work, or Max Work, immediately. If not, the affair will remain shrouded in a cloud of unknowing.

Finally, in one of the posts to your piece, you highlighted “the fact that Modernism/Modernity doesn’t concern itself with someone like Wallace.” Alas, M/M was the first academic journal anywhere to publish an extended tribute to Wallace after his untimely death, which included pieces by Dave Eggers, Michael North, and Marshall Boswell. (See Modernism/Modernity 16.1, January 2009: 1-24.) The alleged rupture between modernism and postmodernism is one urged only by the simple-, not to be confused with the Sample-, minded.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence Rainey, Editor of Modernism/Modernity

Nicole Devarenne, former Managing Editor of Modernism/Modernity

David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, and the Littlest Literary Hoax

Mark Sample20 Comments

Jay Murray Siskind is Don DeLillo’s only recurring character, having first appeared in DeLillo’s pseudonymous Amazons and later as a kind of Mephistopheles character in White Noise. Now, Siskind has broken out of the realm of fiction and entered the real world.

I am referring to “An Undeniably Controversial and Perhaps Even Repulsive Talent,” a review of David Foster Wallace’s work that appeared in the prestigious journal Modernism/Modernity, published by The Johns Hopkins University Press. Found in the Volume 11, Number 4 issue (2004) of Modernism/Modernity, the review focuses on Wallace’s last collection of short stories, Oblivion, and is attributed to a certain Jay Murray Siskind, Department of Popular Culture, Blacksmith College.

Anyone familiar with White Noise should recognize the clues that the supposed reviewer is DeLillo’s character and not some real live scholar with the same name: there’s the fictional Blacksmith College (which, while not the college portrayed in White Noise, is a name of one of the neighboring towns); there are the fake footnotes in the review referring to other characters and details from White Noise, including narrator Jack Gladney and thuggish Alfonse Stompanato); and finally, there are the decidedly non-reviewish interjections by Siskind in the middle of the seemingly serious review:

It is at this point that I must confess to missing something in Wallace, namely the presence of women nearer the center of the narration (setting aside Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman, Jr., the protagonist in Wallace’s first novel, The Broom of the System). I admit that I’ve always been partial to them, i.e. women. I fall apart at the sight of long legs, striding, briskly, as a breeze carries up from the river, on a weekday, in the play of morning light. And what fun it is to talk to an intelligent woman wearing nylon stockings as she crosses her legs. Wallace, I suspect, shares these predilections and could write wonderfully complicated women.

This is pure Siskind as DeLillo imagined him (and for some reason it reminds me of the hilarious scene in White Noise where Siskind pays a prostitute to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him).

I first noticed the fake review in 2005, when one of my students unwittingly cited the review as real research. I had puzzled over it and decided that if I waited long enough, somebody (in Modernism/Modernity circles, in Wallace circles, in DeLillo circles) would come forward and take credit for something I’m sure they thought nobody would be fooled by. Time passed and I forgot about the fake review. Until recently. I’ve done some digging around and discovered that the hoax has gone unnoticed, though the review hasn’t. The review is only ever considered as serious, peer-reviewed research. For example, in addition to my embarrassed student, I’ve found the review cited in several graduate theses, with no acknowledgment that the review is fake. The troubling blindness to contextuality and intertextuality (how could any 20th century Americanist, whether modernist or postmodernist, fail to see the references to perhaps one of the most important novels of the past fifty years) — this troubling blindness on both students and their advisors’ part turns a fun fake review into something much more telling about the state of academia.

This isn’t a hoax on the same level as the Alan Sokal/Social Text affair, nor is it obviously parody, as when The Onion attributes a blog to DeLillo. It is somewhere in between, minor, but noteworthy. I am 100 percent certain that DeLillo was not involved and 95 percent certain that Wallace was not involved; DeLillo is much too subtle and Wallace was far too clever. So I wonder on what level was the hoax perpetrated? Who was in on it? Were the editors of Modernism/Modernity aware? Did some sly book review editor slip it in? Did any regular readers of the journal ever even read, really read, the review? At what point will the real writer blink? Or wink? And what can “An Undeniably Controversial and Perhaps Even Repulsive Talent” teach us about scholarship, publishing, peer-review, and mentoring?

UPDATE (23 July 2009): The editors of Modernism/Modernity have responded.

Amazon.com ending Amazon Associates Program for North Carolina

Mark Sample

Amazon.com sent me a message this morning, announcing that the company is has “little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates” because of an “unconstitutional tax collection scheme” due to be passed by the North Carolina General Assembly. Not that I make any significant amount of money from my referrals to Amazon, but this is still disappointing news. Here’s the full text of Amazon’s announcement:

We regret to inform you that the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) appears ready to enact an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates. You are receiving this e-mail because our records indicate that you are an Amazon Associate and resident of North Carolina.Please note that this is not an immediate termination notice and you are still a valued participant in the Associates Program. All referral fees earned on qualified traffic will continue to be paid as planned.

But because the new law is drafted to go into effect once enacted – which could happen in the next two weeks – we will have to terminate the participation of all North Carolina residents in the Amazon Associates program on or before that same day. After the termination day, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com nor will we accept new applications for the Associates program from North Carolina residents.

The unfortunate consequences of this legislation on North Carolina residents like you were explained in detail to key senators and representatives in Raleigh, including the leadership of the Senate, House, and both chambers’ finance committees. Other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states’ residents.

The North Carolina General Assembly’s website is http://www.ncleg.net/, and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/.

We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates program, and we will apprise you of the General Assembly’s action on this matter.

Sincerely,

Amazon.com

So much for that graphic novel Amazon store I had just set up last night for my class this fall.