Comments(2) Next weekend? We’re welcoming a new kitten into our home. (A Siberian, a breed to which my husband is amazingly NON-reactive.) He’s one of the kittens from this litter (the paler colouring like the one playing inside the tunnel.)
Thanks to Siberlynx Siberians for making this possible.
Comments(0) Western Civ hit the cap of 90 today and is officially closed. I’m glad that our department chair went ahead and put a cap on the course. Having less than 80 in the class last fall made me underestimate the demand. And since we’re not likely to have too many graduate teaching assistants for the upcoming year, it’s not as if I can easily handle a hundred or more in the freshman survey!
Comments(0) It’s not prep for the new term that has me down. It’s every other darned thing in my life that’s sucking away my time and focus and peace of mind.
Some things big and somewhat scary. Some things small and only annoying. Most of them are definitely unbloggable.
Let’s just say that I will need every hour of every working day between now and the start of term to feel even halfway ready. At least my course outlines are prepared!
Comments(0) Term’s just weeks away. Eep! There are 148 students (so far) in my three fall classes. Double eep!
But I enjoyed a fabulous vacation where I pretty well ignored all the work email (partly by choice, partly also because of limited computer time & access). Sadly, this means I’ve set myself up for a wildly busy next eight days especially since I was surprised to find myself on the schedule to present at a local conference on the 25th. (Note to conference organizers: it’s considered a good practice to let people know that their proposal was accepted!)
Since the program link’s not working at the moment, I’ll share the abstract here:
This Has All Happened Before”: Visions of History in Science Fiction
Two contrasting historical models often evoked in the genre are cyclical or Vichian and progressive or Whig. The first, as employed in A.E. van Vogt’s The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950) and more recently in Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009), shows future history’s inevitable rise and fall. Asimov’s influential Foundation books (1951-1988) and Star Trek (1966-present) rely upon Whig history, showing humanity navigating crises to progress to a hopeful future.
Comments(1) Another great opportunity for historians to weigh in on a fun popular culture field: consider submitting a proposal to contribute to Star Trek and History, another forthcoming book in the Pop Culture and history series published by Wiley & Sons. To quote from the webpage linked above:
The primary focus of the collection is on the characters and stories of the first Star Trek series (and its movies), but essays that discuss the use of history in the later Star Trek series (Next Generation, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise) are also welcome. Essays should avoid focusing on a close reading of one single episode, but instead should examine a particular theme across a number of episodes, movies, or even across several Star Trek series, analyzing how the use of history in the series has changed since the 1960s.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
* The Cold War in Star Trek
* Star Trek and the Vietnam War
* Race and gender in Star Trek, discussed against the backdrop of the period when the series was first made (and how the depiction of race, gender, and sexuality developed over the various series and movies)
* Star Trek’s depictions of earlier historical periods (e.g., the American Old West, Nazi Germany, etc.)
* How is history imagined, researched, and taught in the Star Trek universe?
* Making sure that history comes out “right”: the repeated attempts of characters to safeguard, or intervene in, the “right” timeline
* Star Trek’s understanding of the history of science and technology
* The UFP vs. the United Nations: Star Trek’s understanding of governance and legal systems Read more »
Comments(0) We are seeking proposals for essays to be included in an edited collection with the working title of “The Hobbit and History,” to be published by Wiley in 2012 as a volume in its Pop Culture and History series. We’re looking for essays that elaborate the historical context of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and related works, examining individual characters or aspects of Middle-Earth against a historical backdrop, or analyzing how popular historical understandings inform the material. The collection is aimed at a broader audience than is the case for many scholarly collections, and seeks to make visible for readers the underlying use of historical events and culture in “The Hobbit”. We welcome work from historians or those in cognate disciplines, including gender studies, medieval studies or cultural studies.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
Please email a 500-word proposal, a one-page c.v., and contact information to Janice Liedl at jliedl [AT] laurentian.ca by September 15, 2010.
Further information. Comments(3) Like migratory birds, the New York Times returns to a perennial favourite topic: university student behaviour. This time, the subject is plagiarism. I’ve seen the link twittered and blogged about (hat tip to Historiann for some of the best of the blogging).
The Times, as is often their wont, excuses current day students by claiming that this really isn’t their fault — it’s those darned interwebs as article author, Trip Gabriel, explains:
The Internet may also be redefining how students — who came of age with music file-sharing, Wikipedia and Web-linking — understand the concept of authorship and the singularity of any text or image.
But, as Historiann notes in her pithy commentary,
It’s not hard to understand that if you take words from someone else and put your name on them–even if you can’t find the name of an author for attribution–that’s plagiarism, and the definition of it never goes out of style.
Interestingly enough, plagiarism is a persistent problem in remix culture. Research any fan community (from before or during the online era) and you’ll find evidence of someone who plagiarized others’ work (whether baldly republishing it as their own or doing so with minimal changes — new characters or in a new universe or a new song with a sloppy recut of someone else’s video footage).
What amuses me is that most of these will still include the traditional fan creator’s note that the characters/universe belong to the original author/cast/corporate body. There’ll also be someone who, when the plagiarism is uncovered, steps up to defend the plagiarist by saying “this is all derivative, anyway, so how is it hurting anyone?”
The impulse to plagiarize in fan works is even more mystifying to me than in academe — there’s no assignment hanging over your head, no requirement to be completed. There’s even a common fan cultural practice, reccing (recommending), that is focused on sharing/reviewing other good fanworks. But still, some people plagiarize fanworks rather than rec.
As the senior quoted in the article points out quite aptly, writing is hard. We know that — it takes time, it takes practice, it takes research or some effort to acquire the knowledge to flesh out the piece with facts or details. Good writing takes rewriting — the revision process is something that staggers many novices who’re unable or unwilling to disengage themselves from what they’ve produced. To put something raw and untested out there is scary. To be brave enough to share your writing, whether with a classmate, a peer, a professor or the world wide web? That takes guts and, you know!, the actual accomplishment of the writing.
Procrastination, perfectionism, denigration (this is just history/English/whatever, that isn’t that hard/important/part of my major, so I don’t have to work at it) — whatever the impulses leading one to plagiarize, one can always say that the appeal of the no-effort path to good marks or high praise seems to be what is most at work here. It’s not some new internet-age paradigm of originality and identity. It’s plain old plagiarism and we’re not letting it slide by, whatever the excuse!
Comments(4) Our office was inundated, today.
Not figuratively. Literally. Swimming in water. Raining from the ceiling. Weeping down the walls.
It’s a major disaster that began with sloppy renovation work on the floor above (broke the water pipe) and has ended in possibly losing every single student and financial file (paper copy) in our offices. Possibly also taking out the secretary’s computer and while she backs up regularly, I’m not sure if that wasn’t also affected.
Two, maybe three, printers were filled enough with water I could tip them over and pour it out on the desk or floor. Shelves of books were soaked, as were the wooden shelves holding them. Water was puddling into the hallways and under some of the office doors across the hall.
Thankfully, not only did our custodial staff spring into action with an industrial wetvac, but security and physical plant staff and administrators have been by to document the damage and start the recovery efforts.
It’s going to be a long month/term/year.
Comments(1) My estimable colleague Andrew Smith has blogged very thoughtfully on the ways that historians can illuminate the true value of the census in Canadian society, both through our study of the past applications of this data and our promotion of statistical literacy in future generations of voters and politicians.
I commented there but I will reiterate here that it’s sad how stoutly math-phobic many history students seem to be. By equating mathematics and statistics with something they can’t and don’t really want to learn, too many people leave themselves open to be manipulated about history and their current world by those who count on that essential ignorance!
Comments(2) If we get a session chair, I should be presenting at the Big Berks in June of 2011!
*gleefully dives back into research and writing*