Defragmenting

I'm defragmenting my home computer. Today, I deleted a game I've played for a long time from my computer, which is why I decided to defragment it, since defragmenting will complete, in some sense, the deletion.

I haven't really played the game in some months, but I did log on the other day to give away some stuff I thought might be useful to friends.

When I first played, the game world was HUGE, and I really couldn't imagine other people around the world also controlling the avatars I interacted with. I had difficulty telling the avatars (computer generated graphic models controlled by real life people) from the mobs (the computer controlled beings, some of which use the same graphic models as the game provides for avatars).

I played with some really fun people to achieve some common goals involving teamwork, timing, and skill.

The downside was that achieving those goals took a serious time investment, not only in doing X or Y to achieve the goal, but in preparing in other ways, practicing strategies, working on skills, whatever. That's a lot of time I could be doing other things.

And it's just weird to go home from work, log on, and do the game thing, and not really be able to talk about it at work, not because it's illegal or immoral, but because it's not what faculty folks are supposed to be doing on so many levels.

So now my avatar joins Snork, Cisne, Cobi, Ailaminu, Koi, Jaye, and my first game friend Gyron in retirement. It's been a long, strange trip across continents and worlds while sitting on my sofa.

Still, I'm more than ready to be done this time, and it feels good to be defragmenting my life, as well as my computer, just a little bit.

Minor moments and worries

I consider peer editing pretty darned important in my classes, and I make that clear in my syllabus for each class.

And yet, during peer editing (or almost any other given day), a student packs up half-way through the time, and as he walks by me to leave, says, "Is it okay if I leave? My mom made an X appointment for me."

What am I supposed to say? "Nope."

You're in college, what do you mean your mom makes appointments for you? Didn't you tell her you had class?

I'm not sure if the students aren't communicating with parents (not telling parents when they have classes, perhaps because they don't consider classes important), or if parents don't really think classes are important, and so schedule appointments whenever? Or is it just so darned impossible to get any appointment that if you get one, you take it even if you have class?

Maybe I have my priorities wrong, but getting your hair cut, your teeth cleaned, your annual physical are all important, but more important than being in MY class?

Of course, if you're having X kind of emergency, then yes, by all means. But routine stuff, not so much.

On the other hand, there's the student who thought s/he had strep earlier in the semester: at the beginning of break, walks up to me and says, "I think I have pink eye. I shouldn't even be in class because it's so contagious. Can I just give you my assignment and go?"

Yeah, I really really want your assignment from your contagious hand. And I'm really glad you came to class and did group work with your peers. What were you thinking? (This being his/her second case of pink eye this semester, I'm guessing s/he's not thinking about hygiene quite enough?)

It's that time of the semester, when little things just seem to be too much.

Not that I'm paranoid, but I'm sort of worried about mumps. I'm young enough not to fall into the "born before 1957, must have had mumps and be immune" category, and old enough not to fall into the "had a double dose" category. (I have my WHO records from my Peace Corps days, so I can actually tell you the dates of all my stupid vaccines.) I'm in the "had a single dose because that's what they did back then" category.

(Though I've had re-ups of measles, for example. Go figure.)

Watching students get repeated pink eye, pass coughs, and such, I can easily see how mumps could race through a college community hard, even if only 10% aren't immune.

And again, I'm not paranoid. But the contagious for several days before you have symptoms thing worries me.

I have a friend whose immune system is shot from chemo, and I worry about accidentally exposing him/her to anything. Mumps seems especially worrisome. (I worry about the accidental transmission thing when I have a runny nose during a bike ride, or sneeze, or whatever.)

Now, mumps hasn't yet made it to our community, but it's hit the midwest in some areas, and seems especially transmissable amongst students.

Conceiving research and Friday poetry!

I'm a crappy teacher.

An hour or two ago, my department had a meeting, and several people teaching senior seminars talked about the kinds of schedules they work with for research papers. Clearly, I am behind the times. By week five, one said, I've had my students look at all the works we're reading this semester and they turn in a basic topic idea.

By week five in my Chaucer class, I had given my students a short oral quiz on reading Middle English, we'd begun The Canterbury Tales after reading a few short poems and The Book of the Duchess.

By week eight, my colleague continued, the students turn in their first short draft of their final essay.

By week eight, I was trying to get my Chaucer students to brainstorm about research questions for their paper.

It got worse and worse. And it's not getting better.

Some of my students have no problem coming up with research questions; they have all sorts of questions, so it's a matter of helping them focus on something they can work out an answer to within the school term.

Many others want to start with a topic: women in Chaucer, religion in Chaucer.

I wish I could say that I instantly resolve their problems, but I don't.

I tend to conceive of papers growing out of questions, rather than topics. Why does X and not Y happen? What the heck is Proserpina doing in "The Merchant's Tale"? Why do we have no married women amongst the pilgrims, while so many of the women represented in the tales are married?

Once I start asking questions, then I have somewhere to go with my research, and I try to model that for my students. The most difficult thing is to get them to think through the question themselves, work with the text to propose a possible answer, and then figure out how to justify or disqualify that answer, or perhaps refine it.

Proserpina in "The Merchant's Tale" speaks more than May does; she's a wife, a wife by rape; she defies her husband and sides with human wives; she and Pluto represent the incursion of an active, involved Pagan supernatural in a story set in a very Christian milieu.

I try really hard to get students to brainstorm a possible answer through freewriting and listing about their text BEFORE they start reading what other people say. Because, let's face it, once you read Kolve's chapter on "The Miller's Tale," it's hard not to be bound by his reading. And there are lots of smart, convincing critics out there, many of them very convincing; so if you don't have an idea what you think before you begin writing, you're going to find it hard not to follow someone else, even if they're wrong.

Having an idea of a possible answer also makes focusing research easier: do I need to know how the middle ages thought or knew about Proserpina? Fabliaux history? Ideas about female orgasm in the period? Feminist interpretations of the Proserpina story? Chaucer's other uses of Pluto or Proserpina? Classical mythology in Christian medieval England?

The alternative, of course, is to get a depth of knowledge about the critical conversation so that you can begin to work with lacunae and problems in what's already out there. But my undergraduates just aren't at that level. I think it took me several years of grad school before I could really conceive of that level.

But teaching students to conceive of research questions is difficult for me at every level, every semester. I sometimes think I do it better in my first year writing course than in my upper level lit courses, even though those are nearer and dearer to my heart.

In honor of students (and others) with writing block everywhere, and the coming of term paper deadlines, here's the first sonnet from Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella.

NB. Early modern typography often switches U and V, so that loue is love; also I and J. They also didn't have nearly the spelling rigidity that we do. Sometimes, I wish I were an early modern. But then, my first year students spell equally loosely.

Sidney: Astrophel and Stella (first sonnet) [1]

Louing in trueth, and fayne[2] in verse my loue to show,
That she, deare Shee, might take som pleasure of my paine,
Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pittie winne, and pity grace obtaine,
I sought fit wordes to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inuentions fine, her wits to entertaine,
Oft turning others leaues[3], to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitfull showers vpon my sun-burnd brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Inuentions stay[4];
Inuention, Natures childe, fledde step-dame Studies blowes;
And others feet[5] still seemde but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with childe to speak, and helplesse in my throwes[6],
Biting my trewand[7] pen, beating myselfe for spite,
Fool, said my Muse to me, looke in thy heart, and write.

1. Astrophel=star lover, Stella=star
2. fain=desiring
3. leaves: pages, of poetry, for example
4. stay=support, help; think of a cane
5. feet= as in poetic feet, meter, thus other people's poetry
6. throes= of labor, birthing a child as a metaphor for conceiving a poem
7. truant= wayward, uncooperative

The moral of the story: figure out what YOU want to say, and only THEN look to what others have already been talking about, or you'll never get out your conception!

(How pathetic to need footnotes on a blogpage.

Good day

I went to a play this evening by my favorite dead playwright, and I enjoyed it lots. Rollicking good fun (no, it wasn't Titus, but thanks for asking).

As I was walking out, I overheard a young man's voice say, "That was great. I love Shakespeare."

It just warms the cockles of my cold cranky heart!

I rode 30 miles. My legs are tuckered.

And, I may have helped someone with a problem, second hand.

All in all, a good day.

Because one pudendal posting is never enough

Cruising the blogosphere, I found this abstract linked on Kidneynotes and originally from the journal Contraception . (Though, I have to say, I always thought the journal Suicide was as provocatively named as one was likely to get. It makes Shakespeare Quarterly or Exemplaria seem positively tame by comparison, eh?)

Title: "Attitudes, Perceptions and Knowledge about the Vagina: the International Vagina Dialogue Survey"

Vagina Dialogue Survey! (I hope they kickback some of those big pharma profits to Eve Ensler!)

Anyways, here's the abstract:

Background The International Vagina Dialogue Survey examined women's attitudes, perceptions and knowledge regarding the vagina. Methods In total, 9441 women (18–44 years) from 13 countries underwent online interviews during April/May 2004. Results The majority of the women thought that vaginal health did not receive the attention it deserves (66%) and that society has too many
misconceptions about the vagina (65%); indeed, 78% agreed that society's taboos surrounding the vagina contribute to women's ignorance. Only 39% of the women had ever read an informative article on the vagina, although 83% would like to read such an article. Although 79% of the women relied on advice from healthcare professionals (HCPs) when choosing a contraceptive. [less than]50% were comfortable talking to HCPs about vagina-related issues. Conclusions A more open and informative approach is needed with regard to the subject of the vagina in order to empower and educate women about their bodies and in matters such as choice of contraception.

Do you ever get the sense that there's a boatload of money wasted on stuff we all know? What self-respecting human in the US (or most other countries) thinks we educate women (or men) well about their bodies, about contraception, about sexuality? I could have told them this, and for a WHOLE lot less money.

And the nightmare stories women shared in dorm rooms about encounters with specula and wielders of said instruments? Oh, yeah, what vaginally-enabled human hasn't heard those? Or had a few to tell herself? The only thing shocking about the [less than] 50% is that it's not more like [less than] 20%.

From Shakespeare's Sister (and what Bardiac wouldn't love a blog with THAT name?), here's a post on South Carolina Representative Ralph Davenport who wants to make all sex toys illegal in South Carolina. (I'm so jealous of the great title: "Dildo? Dilno." Seriously jealous.)

Read the responses, because they're great. Oh, yeah, and here's a link to the proposed law. Reading this, I get a sense that some people spend way too much time worrying about what other consenting adults do with their fingers, toes, noses, lips, and tongues. (And perhaps, at least one other body part, too.)

I'm thinking that Representative Ralph Davenport needs a little education from the Vagina Dialogue. He also needs to read Herrick's "The Vine" and just deal with the fact that humans are creative about what they use and put where, and have been since they evolved into anything near intelligence.

Or someone creative should create a dildo in his name, "The Davenport Dildo" for when you're really too small-minded for the job.

Note: Blogger is making me crazy whenever I try to use the "pointy typographic not a parenthesis sign" in the abstract to mean "less than." It seems to read those pointy signs as being purely html signifiers, and then does strange things. Repeatedly. So, when you see [less than] think of the pointy not a parenthesis sign that means "less than" in the math world.

CFP: Early Modern Women Writers across Borders

After all the fun of the REALLY dead women writers meme thing, when I saw this, I thought, "hey, Bardiac, you should post that." So here goes.

Courtesy of the always interesting and useful Shaksper (and with great thanks always to Hardy Cook):

Early Modern Women Writers across Borders

A session at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, 22-24 March 2007 in Miami, Florida

Early modern women writers are frequently examined in terms that are limited to their own countries. And yet, we might fruitfully comparewomen writers in different countries and look at how women writers themselves transcended national boundaries, by participating ininternational debates, translating texts, situating themselves inrelation to writers from abroad, and in numerous other ways. Proposals are invited for presentations on early modern women writersand their relationships to other European countries. What can be gained from looking at early modern women writers across borders? Proposals are requested on any theme provided the papers move beyond national boundaries in their examination of early modern women writers. Interdisciplinary approaches are welcome.

Please e-mail an abstract and a brief curriculum vitae to Martine vanElk at mvanelk@csulb.edu as soon as possible, but no later than May 12, 2006. This session will be sponsored by the Center for Medieval andRenaissance Studies at California State University, Long Beach.

Martine van Elk mvanelk@csulb.edu
Assistant Professor
California State University, Long Beach
Department of English
mvanelk@csulb.edu
1250 Bellflower Blv.
Long Beach, CA90840-2403

I'd love to hear if bloggers submit something for this!

Pudendum, etc

The other day in my Chaucer seminar, one of my students was looking at a note in their text, and asked in that totally student way, "what's a pudendum?"

I explained. (Well, I thought I explained. I said female genitalia. On looking it up, I learned that it's specifically the external genitalia. Live and learn, I say!)

My students muttered about notes that obscure information by using words such as pudendum. I have to agree that if you're going to explain something in Chaucer, you need to use language your readers are likely to understand. But maybe in the 1960s, when this text was edited, your average student understood "pudendum" without having to look it up or ask his/her professor?

Today, because I'm that kind of nerd, I decided to look up pudendum. I had the OED opened up on the laptop anyways, looking up "comity" because Dean Dad used it and while I could pretty much guess the meaning, I'm that kind of nerd. (Not that my nerdliness is a major revelation by this point.)

Now, going with the nerd thing, I of course looked at the etymology, because, hey, it LOOKS Latin, right?

And here's what I found: "L., neuter gerundive of pudre to cause shame, ashame, lit. ‘that of which one ought to be ashamed’, used as n., commonly in pl."

(The commonly used in plural strikes me as interesting, but on with my rant.)

Now, I don't have my Latin/English dictionary with me, but I looked at an online dictionary (Whitaker Words), and the definition there wasn't about female genitalia but also about being shamed, causing shame, etc. Which is to say that pudendum isn't a Latin term for female genitalia, but the use of a Latin word for "shame" as an English word for "external female genitalia" with the implication that one should be ashamed about external female genitalia.

The OED gives the first usage in 1398, so I'm thinking it's a sort of metaphoric refusal of translation: rather than use a Latin word such as vulva, Trevisa (the origin of the 1398 quotation) and his followers, including the editor of my student's Chaucer (Baugh), chose a word that connects female genitalia* with shame, being shamed, humiliation, and so forth.

That choice seems odd at the outset for someone editing Chaucer, for gosh sakes, because we're talking about texts that describe sex pretty explicitly ("And sodeynly anon this Damyan / Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng" "The Merchant's Tale" 1108-9), without much hint that sex per se is shameful or that women's genitals are shameful.

But editing using "pudendum" produces levels of shamefulness: students have to look up or ask for meanings from the glossing, and the meaning produced by the psuedo-Latin is one of shame at female genitalia. (And then there's the whole "glosing" thing, but I'm not going there today.)

So far as I know, my generation really hasn't started editing Chaucer in a big way, though we have begun on individual editions of Shakespeare.

I have one request for editors and future editors: don't imply that female sexuality is shameful, that vaginas**, clitorides*** (I had to look up the plural, this time in Dictionary dot com), labia (think Irigirayian plentitude!) are shameful.

Seriously, there are shameful acts which involve sex. Rape is a good example. But sex per se isn't shameful, and you shouldn't gloss sexual language, jokes, or innuendo so that your readers will need a second gloss or dictionary to understand the text, or to imply that body parts are shameful.

Yes, DO explain when a text uses body parts or fluids in ways intended to make women ashamed or to disempower women. But don't introduce shaming in your glossing. There's a difference.

*What, you ask? The OED shows "genital" about 1382 (it says "of generation," but the examples are about body parts, I think). (Oddly, the more properly Latin sounding "genitalia" starts being used in English in 1876, though the Latin English dictionary seems to indicate that it's straight from Latin, so maybe it's just not really Englished until the 19th century?)

**Vagina (Latin: sheath, scabbard) is problematic in it's own way because it seems defined by what it's "intended" to sheath rather than by itself. That is, it seems to serve an etymologically secondary function to the pleasure of the penis rather than to serve as its own area of pleasure and reproductive function. (The OED records its first use in 1682.)

***And, for the benefit of those who like to be irritated by phallogocentrism: The OED defines "clitoris" as "A homologue of the male penis, present, as a rudimentary organ, in the females of many of the higher vertebrata." (It's from the Greek for "shut"; I don't claim to understand that one.)

I'm sorry, but rudimentary organ it ain't. (And really, this is the ON-LINE OED, not a first edition. This is the most UP TO DATE!) (And to be honest, I'm not sorry the clitoris isn't rudimentary. I am sorry the OED editors are still sexist.)

Penis, on the other hand, is NOT (according to the OED) a homologue, but "1. Anat. and Zool. The male genital organ used (usually) for copulation and for the emission or dispersal of sperm, in mammals containing erectile tissue and serving also for the elimination of urine." (Dictionary dot com does better, and in its definition of penis includes the information that the penis is homologous with the clitoris. Go Dictionary dot com!)

I think we need new words/definitions. We need to name and define our organs and body parts for ourselves, for themselves, and only afterwards in relation to other bodies (some of which may be male).

I'm not the only one to think about such things. As I was getting all into the various definitions, I recalled this post on naming vaginal fluids, which resulted in this list over at a newish blog called Pegspot.

Let's define the clitoris, readers! And let's rename the vagina, while we're at it!

What's that song about the "love hump"? Even that seems too het... too male dependent.

Dunking Dilemma

I got an email (copied to all instructors, I think) the other day from a campus dorm organization asking faculty folks to offer up our services as dunking booth occupants for a charitable event the dorm organization's hosting. It's something to raise money for an organization dealing with depression.

So, it's for charity; it's not often that student groups ask us to specifically help them, especially dorm groups, and it's good on many levels to make connections with students; it's 10 minutes in a booth, pretty much guaranteed to result in at least one good soaking on a spring day; I'm drip dry, and unfortunately don't shrink with washing. Show students that one professor at least takes things with good humor.

So that's all good, except, it's a dunking booth, and something in my gut tells me that doing a dunking booth thing just isn't what I want to do by way of student involvement, charity money raising, or even bathing, and that all the good humor I can raise won't come forward when I see some student taking aim.

There's the whole students taking out aggression on professors, especially a female professor, and more especially, ME, thing.

There's also the secret fear: what if no one likes me enough to want to dunk me, even, thing?

Then there's the what does one wear to a dunking, thing? Because normally, a t-shirt and shorts (maybe over a swim suit) would be fine if I were likely to be publicly wet (they work for rafting trips), but I'm thinking not here. The wet t-shirt contest image just isn't me. It wasn't me 25 years ago, and things have gone downhill since then. And shorts, no, the idea of showing myself in shorts to students creeps me out. Maybe jeans, but dang they're uncomfortable when wet.

I have a hard time articulating my reasons for not wanting to participate.

Back at my former job, in an even smaller midwestern school, the administration thought it would be really fun to get fake "sumo suits" and have people pay a buck to fake sumo wrestle in them at an event to raise money for some charity. Maybe I'm nuts, but that, too, seemed like a lousy idea, though it was hard to articulate why.

I guess it had to do with the fact that our students and community had so little real experience with Japanese culture or people, and that playing in "sumo suits" mocked that culture from a position of deep ignorance. And it had to do with the ways that our society treats people who are overweight or obese, and those suits really mocked weight problems.

On the other hand, I'm not generally against mockery. I've even been known to mock on occasion. And I think laughing, especially at satire and foolishness is a fine thing. I don't think that laughing or mocking from a position of ignorance is, though, I guess?

So, blogosphere of wisdom, what shall I do?

Dress in jeans and a tee-shirt with another shirt over, and take a dip for charity?

Or no?

ps. Blogspot seems spotty today, for others, too?

Happy Death Day and Traditional Birthday, Big Guy!

According to parish records, William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616 (he was buried on April 25th).

Traditionally, people say he was born on April 23, 1564. Actually, since his family and community didn't realize he was going to be THE William Shakespeare, they didn't record his birth. Instead, they recorded his baptism on April 26, 1564. (Traditionally baptisms were recorded within a few days of birth, we think, so April 23 isn't a bad guess, but it's a guess, still.)

I think Shakespeareans and others just think it's easier to remember one date than to consider the complexity of remembering several.

But remembering that no one recorded his birth as such reminds us that much of life is up to chance, and that no one knows what's to come. And that's just as well, eh?

Complexity makes us think harder.

Lies and politics

The FDA recently issued a report saying that marijuana has no medical uses, and no one should bother to research possible medical uses, in direct contradiction to reports by the Institute of Medicine, a subgroup of the National Academy of Sciences. I'm sure you've seen the news around, but here's a CNN link, for what little it's worth.

And lots of folks are saying that it reminds them of the FDA's refusal to license Plan B to be sold over the counter/without a prescription nationally (though some states have already licensed it for over the counter, non-prescription sales) despite the overwhelming support of the scientists and medicos on the recommending committee.

Both decisions are political, both bad science.

Most of my students come to school with a great deal of trust in the authority of people in power, which is good insofar as they don't beat me up when I give out grades they don't like or insist that yes, they actually have to do some difficult work. But it's bad insofar as they don't often demand to be told the reasoning behind authoritarian declarations. And therein, I hope, is some difference between the "them" of Washington and me, because I spend a lot of time trying to explain why I think X or why their paper deserved a D.

One of my students is working on a paper on ecstasy.

(Disclaimer: I'm pretty boring about drugs. Let's face it, these days, for me, a walk on the wild side drug-wise involves a third Advil. So, I'll admit that I've never taken ecstasy. I have no financial ties to ecstasy production or distribution so far as I know.)

He wants to know how ecstasy works in the brain, and what effects it has physically and psychologically. In approaching the topic, he talked about how he'd always heard in school that ecstasy was super dangerous, that it would pretty much get someone addicted on a first go, kill them instantly, and so forth. And he talked about not using ecstasy, but knowing people who did use it, and who weren't (so far as he could tell) instantly addicted or dead.

He likened the information he'd been given about ecstasy to the abstinence "information" he'd gotten at school about sex. At school, the training had made sex out to be a huge big deal, horrible, scary, and so forth, and yet in his experience, that wasn't so. The disconnection between authority and experience taught the student to distrust authority.

Now, on one level, this project is great news for people like me: a student is actually questioning authority and trying to find out why policy is what it is, and what the scientific community thinks about a specific question. I'm all for that kind of inquiry because that's what we want our educated citizenry to do, question, investigate, reason.

But the dishonesty of the representation of information in the high schools strikes me as horribly unethical and wrong.

On the other hand, as another student pointed out, maybe my student hadn't taken ecstasy because of the misinformation, and had been saved from a health or legal problem.

My student continued on to ask if his teachers knew "the truth" about sex and drugs, but weren't telling, or if they'd been lied to and hadn't a clue. Where, he asked, though not in so many words, did truth reside? And if his teachers hadn't been smart or cared enough to seek to communicate the truth, how could he respect anything they'd tried to teach him?

First defense

I ran my first MA thesis defense today, and it went really well.

The student's work was really different and original, to the point where, if I typed the topic and you did a search with the appropriate engine in a couple months, this MA thesis would be pretty unique. And it wouldn't be unique because it's a bad topic, boring, or whatever, but because it requires a pretty unusual skill set.

I learned a TON working with her, which made it a real pleasure, but there were some rocky moments along the way. Our conversation today was just grand, about as interesting, fun, and exciting as I could wish.

One moment of bragging: the external member (whom I'd never met before) went out of her way to say how my important my contribution to the thesis's organization was (one of the rough spots that worked out well in the end).

It felt REALLY different on the other end. I've been reading Ancrene Wiseass's blog about her upcoming, and now happily done oral, and thinking about my role in my own situation (AW isn't at NWU, just to clarify). I mean, I tried to be supportive in the right ways, to make sure the student got my honest, critical response to her work, to push her to make the thesis as good as she could make it in a reasonable time, and so forth. But to be absolutely honest, it takes more work than I'd realized, and I'm sure I wasn't as good a responder as I should have been.

When I was headed into my big exam, my director told me that he wouldn't let me go forward with it if he didn't think I was ready. I felt my MA student was ready, but I didn't feel especially confident that my jugdment was all that accurate, somehow, so it was hard to push and reassure her at the same time.

Anyways, congrats to my soon to be newly hooded MA student, and congrats to Ancrene Wiseass! And to all those folks working through exams of all sorts, good luck, and congrats to those who are or have passed!

Ah me, Herrick!

If it's Friday, it must be poetry blogging, or something, right? I give you:

Robert Herrick, "The Vine" (from Hesperides printed 1648)

I dreamed this mortal part of mine
Was metamorphosed to a vine,
Which, crawling one and every way,
Enthralled my dainty Lucia.
Methought, her long small legs and thighs
I with my tendrils did surprise;
Her belly, buttocks, and her waist
By my soft nervelets were embraced
About her head I writhing hung
And with rich clusters (hid among
The leaves) her temples I behung,
So that my Lucia seemed to me
Young Bacchus ravished by his tree.
My curls about her neck did crawl,
And arms and hands they did enthrall,
So that she could not freely stir
(All parts there made one prisoner).
But when I crept with leaves to hide
Those parts which maids keep unespied,
Such fleeting pleasures there I took
That with the fancy I awoke,
And found (ah me!) this flesh of mine
More like a stock than like a vine.


(I have to admit that seeing engravings of Herrick [look at the link above] ... well, my assumptions about hotness and poetry get challenged all over the place, I admit it.)

Ah me, I love this poem!

Faculty Student research?

My campus is pretty into faculty student research. The model comes from the sciences, where junior researchers can learn to collect data and contribute to projects.

I'd like to see a really good model from within the humanities, and specifically, from within the humanities that isn't current popular culturally based.

Because I'm a self-centered so and so, I'd like the research to contribute to my work, learning, research, and to COUNT for something at review time.

I'd also like it to benefit the student(s) in meaningful ways.

One idea I'm starting to toss around: I'm doing a dramaturgy thing with a local high school group for a week this summer, and I'm thinking an undergrad could do some meaningful meta-analysis of reaching Shakespeare/performance to secondary students? Or could, possibly, contribute something meaningful to the dramaturgy aspect of the project?

I'd really appreciate some ideas, because while I'm interested in general, I'm coming up blank with models or ideas I can use.

On some level, it seems to me that the "data" lit people "collect" requires a fairly broad sense of theoretical and/or historical issues, and that sense takes longer than most undergrads have to develop about any given work of literature, much less a field.

Also, most of the super motivated students that I hear about doing science type faculty student research are aiming for med school, and they're really focused on specific work that will help their application(s). We have very few of those type students interested in potential humanities research.

Ideas, please??

Carnival of Feminists XIII

The Carnival of Feminists XIII is up at I See Invisible People!

She included the Really Dead Women Writers meme project!

The REALLY Dead Women Writers Meme

I expect I've made some mistakes or left some people out. Please feel free to make suggestions for corrections, copy and transmit, transmute, or whatever; just remember to read some of these great writers along the way. (My suggestion of the day is to read Anne Clifford's diary; but feel free to choose something else!)

My thanks again to everyone who contributed, and especially to Mon for coming up with the idea of a women writers meme and being gracious when I made one for REALLY dead women writers. Always remember, when it comes to writers, the deader, the better. (I think Sappho's the grand winner here.)

A bit of added background: The meme started with a short post here about how earlier women writers get ignored; because I felt that any list I put together wouldn't be nearly full enough, I proposed that I'd start with five writers, and asked people to contribute their own five suggestions. Lots of people (as you can see from the list) posted contributions on their own blogs, or contributed in the comments to blogs, and as a bonus, I learned a lot more about women writers. I posted a second draft of the REALLY dead women writers blog here. The current draft incorporates the second round of suggestions and corrections. (But given the editorial skill I've shown elsewhere, I expect there are still corrections to be made.)

In the collaborative spirit of the meme, I hope folks will get some ideas for reading / teaching from the list, and realize just how rich women's writing has been in the past, how complex our history is, and how very worthy of study.

Here's a thought for further work: help me learn how to teach women writers better, how to incorporate more women's works into my classes. (Dr. Virago at Quod She, for example, has a just way cool recent post about teaching Margery Kempe. I'd love to read more posts about teaching women writers and teaching feminism in earlier periods.)

Again, thanks for teaching me so much about women writers!

Contributors: Links are to the blogger's meme post

And Gladly Wolde (S)he lerne (History Geek)
Anthony
Bitch PhD
The Blog that Ate Manhattan (tbtam)
Cats and Dogma
Dr. Crazy - ?
J. Dryden - ?
Early Modern Notes (Sharon)
Heo Cwaeth
Hieronimo - ?
Household Opera (Amanda)
Jenny D - ?
Karl the Grouchy Medievalist - ?
Kittenry
La Lecturess
Laustichirps
Meatcheesebun (St. Eph)
Medieval Woman
Medusa Smiles (Minerva)
My So Called (ABD) Life (Mon)
Penny L. Richards - Disability Studies
Phantom Scribbler - ?
Philobiblon
Purple Elephant’s Corner
Quod She (Dr. Virago)
Siris (Brandon)
Self Portrait As (Holly)
Styley Geek - ?
Swan Dive (Weezy)
TheMamaBlogs


The Meme!

Anonymous - The Floure and the Leafe (See Quod She for explanation)
Anonymous - Eliza's Babes or The Virgin's Offering (1652)
Hannah Adams (1755-1831) - Alphabetical Compendium of the Various Sects
Maria Gaetana Agnesi (Italian, 1718-1799) - mathematical and philosophical treatises, including Propositiones Philosophicae (1738) and Analytical Institutions
Andal (Tamil Religious Poet) - ?
Angela of Foligno -
Jane Anger - Jane Anger Her Protection for Women (1589)
Anne Askew - The Examinations of Anne Askew
Mary Astell - A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694), Some Reflections upon Marriage
Jane Austen – Lady Susan, Love and Freindship, etc
Abigail Abbot Bailey - The Memoirs of Abigail Abbot Bailey (1790s)
Martha Ballad - The Diary of Martha Ballard 1785- 1812 (or just read A Midwife’s Tale)
Anna Lætitia Barbauld (1743-1825) - Hymns in Prose for Children
Baudonivia - Vita of Saint Radegund
Aphra Behn - Oroonoko
Ana Eliza Bleecker - The History of Maria Kittle (1779)
Frau Ava - "Johannes," "Leben Jesu," "Antichrist," "Das Jüngste Gericht"
Anne Bradstreet - collected poems, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, written in "the New World"
St. Bridget - hymns, Revelations
Frances Moore Brooke (English, 1724-1789, pseudonym "Mary Singleton, Spinster") - editor of The Old Maid (1755-56), wrote poems, a play, libretti, translations; while in Canada, wrote The History of Emily Montague (1769)
Fanny Burney - Evelina
Elizabeth Cary – The Tragedy of Mariam (1613); The History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II (1627)
Catherine of Sienna - The Dialogue of Catherine of Sienna
Margaret Cavendish – The Blazing World, The Atomic Poems, The Convent of Pleasure (1668)
Susanna Centlivre - "A Bold Stroke for a Wife"
Christine de Pisan (aka Pizan) – Book of the City of Ladies, Book of the Path of Long Study, Christine's Vision
Anne Clifford - Diary
Catherine Trotter Cockburn - "Defence of Mr. Locke's Essay," The Revolution of Sweden
Mary Collier – The Woman’s Labour
An Collins - Divine Songs and Meditations (1653)
Vittoria Colonna - "Amaro Lagrimar"
Anna Comnena - The Alexiad
Mary Cooper - The Diary of Mary Cooper
Damaris Cudworth (Lady Masham) -- Occasional Thoughts
Charlotte Dacre - "Zofloya"
Dhuoda - Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman's Counsel for Her Son (at Sunshine for Women) and a dual-language version from Cambridge UP
Elizabeth Drinker - The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth Century Woman
Maria Edgeworth - ?
Eloise – The Letters of Eloise and Abelard (well, hers, anyways)
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz - Fama y obras póstumas La Comtessa de Dia - "A chantar m'er" & other Trobairitz poetry
Sarah Fyge Egerton – The Female Advocate
Elizabeth Elstob - The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue (1715).
'Ephelia' - Female Poems On Several Occasions (c. 1679)
Margaret Fell - Women's Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed by the Scriptures (1666)
Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson - ?
Sarah Fielding - ?
Anne Finch - Poems, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy
Moderata Fonte (Modesta da Pozzo) - Il merito delle donne (Woman’s Worth) (1600)
Hannah W. Foster - The Coquette
Sarah Friske - A Confession of Faith (1700)
Luise Kulmus Gottsched (German, 1713-1762) - plays, poetry, translation Hadewijch devotional poet (13th century) - ?
Queen Hatshepsut - Speech of the Queen Mary Hays - ?
Eliza Haywood - The History of Miss Betsey Thoughtless
Mary Sidney Herbert – see Mary Sidney
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - Scivias and Liber Divinorum Operum
Hrostvitha of Gandersheim (c.930-c.1002) - Plays Gallicanus & Dulcitius
Eleanor Hull - A Commentary on the Penitential Psalms
Huneberc of Heidenheim's - Hodoeporicon of St. Willibald (8th century, Latin)
Lucy Hutchinson (1620-1681) - Order and Disorder
Mary Jemison - The Diary of Mary Jemison
Julian of Norwich - Revelations of Divine Love
Lady Kasa - ?
Catherine Macaulay - Letters on Education (1790) and History of England, 8 vols. (1763-1783)
Bathsua Makin (1600-1675) - An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen
Margery Kempe - The Book of Margery Kempe
Sarah Kemble Knight - The Journal of Madame Knight 1666-1727
Louise Labbe (Labe?) - Sonnets
Aemilia Lanyer - Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum
Anne Locke (aka Ane Loke, etc) – Meditations of a Penitent Sinner
Leonor Lopez - Autobiography
De la Riviere Manley (Mary De La Riviere Manley) – The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians
Marguerite de Navarre - "L'Heptameron"
Marie de France – Lais of Marie de France, The Fables (beast fables a la Aesop), The Purgatory of Saint Patrick (a saint's life/treatise)
Gwerful Mechain - Poems
Mechtild of Magdebourg - The Flowing Light of the Godhead
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu - ?
Marie Morin (Quebecois, 1659-1730), first Canadian nun - memoirs as the annals of the Hotel-Dieu
Sarah Wentworth Morton - ?
Murasaki Shikubu - The Tale of Genji
Judith Sargent Murray - "On the Equality of the Sexes" (1790)
Amelia Opie - ?
The Paston Women - The Paston Letters
Perpetua - Passions of Perpetua and Felicity
Katherine Phillips - Poems
Eliza Lucas Pinckney - The Letterbook of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1739-1762
Plumpton family (Dame Anges Plumpton, Dame Isabel Plumpton, Dame Elizabeth de la Pole) - Plumpton Letters
Margaret (Marguerite de) Porete - Mirror of Simple Souls
Ann Radcliffe - The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Romance of the Forest
Clara Reeve (English, 1729-1807) - The Old English Baron (1778), The School for Widows (1791) Veronica Franco Rime (1575) - ?
Robinson, Mary (1758-1800) - Beaux and Belles of England Mrs. Mary Robinson, Written by Herself, With the lives of the Duchesses of Gordon and Devonshire Poems and Sappho and Phaon.
Mary Rowlandson - The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (available online)
Susanna Rowson - Charlotte Temple
Sappho - ?
Jane Sharp – The Midwives Book
Frances Sheridan - ?
Sei Shonagon - The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon
Mary Sidney – The Triumph of Death (translation of Petrarch), Psalms
Rachel Speght - Mouzell for Melastomus and Mortalities Memorandum
Germaine de Stael - "Corinne, or Italy"
Gaspara Stampa - ?
Stonor family (Mary Barantyne (sister to William Stonor), Jane Stonor, Elizbeth Stonor, Anne Stonor) - The Stonor Letters
Teresa of Avila - Life
Lucy Terry - "Bar Fights"
Hester Thrale - Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson
Chen Tong, Tan Ze and Qian Yi - The Peony Pavilion: Commentary Edition by Wu Wushan's Three Wives
Trotula - The Diseases of Women
Elizabeth Tudor – Poems, Speeches, Letters
Mercy Otis Warren - ?
Phillis Wheatley - The Poems of Phillis Wheatley
Isabella Whitney - The Copy of a Letter, lately written in meeter by a yonge Gentilwoman: to her unconstant lover (1567) and A Sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posy: Containing a Hundred and Ten Philosophical Flowers (1573)
Helen Maria Williams - "Letters from France"
Betje Wolff (Dutch, 1738-1804) - Historie van mejuffrouw Sara Burgerhart (1782)
Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Susanna Wright (1697-1784) – Poems?
Lady Mary Wroth - Urania, Poems

**Some corrections made, thanks!

Catching up

This month's Teaching Carnival is up on A Delicate Boy.

Another bit of lousy pharmacy news

Here's a hat tip to A Day in the Life of a Radical Pharmacy Owner who posted an article from Seattle about "More Immoral Pharmacists." The original article's here in a Seattle paper called The Stranger.

So, Cedar Rivers Clinics which provides abortions and women's health services has filed a complaint with the Washington State Department of Health because some pharmacies are refusing to fill prescriptions for their patients for antibiotics.

Radical Pharmacy Owner has an interesting take, including some issues I wouldn't have thought about. Radical Pharmacy Owner suggests contacting the Washington State Board of Pharmacy.

Here's the mailing address:

Washington State Department of Health
Health Professions Quality Assurance
P.O. Box 47865
Olympia WA 98504-7865

You can also find board members' names and such on the website.

I'm so tired of this sort of BS, even though I have a feeling it's really just beginning.

Second best job!

The CNN Money list of the top jobs in the US. There IS indeed a lot to be said for the flexibility of scheduling many of us have, and the rather open attitudes towards clothing choices. The big thing, though, is that if you're teaching with a terminal degree, it's likely that you're teaching something you love, and that's beyond vital.

Why didn't I learn?

In my last post, I talked a little bit about being in a situation that made me really uncomfortable and wanting to just be somewhere else. I've been thinking a bit about it, especially while I was driving and riding recently.

Here's the thing: at Northwoods U, we often talk about how we're willing to put our students in uncomfortable situations because they'll learn from them. We want them to deal with people of different cultures, to study abroad, to work through their sometime discomfort discussing feminism, gay and lesbian issues, issues regarding class and religious differences, and so forth.

Now, when it comes to sexuality, I figure in any given class, there are students who've tried things I've never heard of, and wouldn't be flexible enough to do, who've experienced things I've only read about, and who've never masturbated.

As far as drugs, I'm pretty sure there are students who've had light years more experience than I've had, and some who've never taken anything stronger than Aspirin (and given the Reye's syndrome thing, probably some who've never had aspirin). I figure in every class I teach students who are exploring their sexuality, and students who think all sexual expression outside of marriage for the purpose of procreating is deathly sin.

I know class discussions of sexuality or religious practices can make students uncomfortable, but I still explain the sexual jokes in texts, still talk about gender construction, whatever, because these are important aspects of understanding the literature I teach.

So, the other day, there I was in that uncomfortable position, and danged, it was uncomfortable.

Okay, I should have thought, I can learn from this! It's an opportunity for personal growth. But I wasn't thinking that at all.

I guess in some ways, the challenge is to take uncomfortable situations and make them into learning opportunities when you can, and I should have done that. (And my experience really was mundane, not threatening, or painful, or dangerous, or blah blah. I don't think anyone was about to beat me up or whatever.)

On the other hand, sometimes it has to be okay to decide that you've experienced some particular subculture, tried whatever veggie often enough, and that you just don't want to try it again.

One thing about the Northwoods subculture, at least this particular aspect of it: people here really try to be polite. They usually have good intentions. They can make you feel like shit with a smile on their face, totally unaware.

Partly, I realize, the issue is that (like many others) I idealize the area where I grew up, and imagine that things really would be different there. Maybe they would, but I can still imagine the exact same situation happening; heck, while I was growing up, similar situations happened, and things haven't changed all that much.

The sad fact is that there's simply no escape from certain attitudes, not here, not there. And I don't think I really learn anything encountering those attitudes again and again.

Perspective

I finished doing my taxes the other day. As a result, I felt vaguely virtuous, and went and bought myself new shoes (because the plastic's through to the foot on my old sneakers) and a cool pair of binoculars.

I'd been reading a blog by someone complaining about paying "tens of thousands" of dollars in taxes. Complaining. I wish that blogger would go visit a shelter or a head start center and think a bit more about the complaining thing.

Doing taxes makes me think about retirement savings. I started late, 15 years later than most people in my cohort. Still, I should be okay, all things considered.

I've been doing this mid-life crisis thing for like a year now, and at least part of my fantasy focuses around buying a basic motorcycle. My driving skills and attitude being what they are, buying a motorcycle would pretty much ensure that I'd never see retirement, so that would be one less thing to worry about. Then there's the organ donor thing: abstractly, I'm signed up to donate, but I'm not sure I'm ready to donate just yet.

Last year I decided to just roll down the window in my wagon and pretend. And I jumped out of an airplane, which was far safer than buying myself a motorcycle. Did I mention my rather aggressive driving habits? I may go jump out of an airplane a few more times, to get licensed for a free fall jump.

It was scary as hell to jump that once. It's about the first time I've been faced with a physical challenge where I didn't know until I actually put my body outside the plane that I could physically make myself do it. (Actually, now that I think about it, it's the second time I've had that difficult a challenge. Jumping out of the airplane was eons more fun than the first. You know when you see someone in a movie who's really really scared but just can't stop a sneeze? I know from personal experience that when I'm scared enough, I can repress every urge to sneeze or cough for 2 months.)

Something happened yesterday that made me feel just how badly I don't fit into the Lake Wobegon world that the Northwoods fantasizes itself being. I felt desperate not to be here. I have a job I love, and I enjoy my colleagues and many things about being here. But. In a way, it's harder than jumping out of a plane, though it's completely and utterly mundane. And the other people involved had no idea how frustrated and angry I was. (At least I hope they had no idea.)

Two of my friends are going through treatments for scary illnesses right now.

One of them is one of my college friends, someone I love dearly, though I'm far away now. I wish there were some way I could live closer, offer some meaningful help.

The other lives closer, and I'm at least nearby. After visiting the other day, I told another friend that I'm lousy at visiting hospitals. My other friend said, "everyone's lousy at visiting hospitals." And she was right. And none of us really wants to get good at it. I guess I should feel lucky that I haven't had years of practice.

My friends' illnesses make the whole motorcycle and airplane thing look pretty pathetic.

Perspective.

ps. I'm going away for a couple days: my school has a holiday so that students can travel for religious purposes but we're supposed to pretend that we're not a state school sanctioning religion, even though we are. My travel has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with road lust. The bike's going along.

The NEXT draft of the REALLY dead women writers meme

Hello again, everyone!

Wow, the REALLY dead women writers meme took off beyond my wildest dreams.

I’m posting here the second draft of the meme, along with a list of contributors. I KNOW I’ve made mistakes, and would greatly appreciate suggestions for improvement or further additions to the list. If I mistakenly didn’t list you as a contributor and you’d like to be listed, please let me know, and let me know the url of your meme post(s) if you have posted on your own blog.

I tried checking contributors who emailed me or posted in the comments here, as well as those who posted in comments to other responses to suggestions, but I’m bound to have missed some. If I just found your suggestions in the comments on another meme, but couldn’t find a separate meme post on your URL, I put a ? after your name. Where I found them, I’ve linked URLs for the meme responses I saw.

A GREAT benefit for me is that I’ve learned of some new blogs!

I’m also sure that I’ve messed up names of authors, or missed adding a specific work suggested, or whatever. And I admit up front that I’m rather alphabetically challenged, so please point out areas needing correction. (Am I the only person who thought “elemeno” was a single letter when I learned the alphabet?) Some are last name first, some first name first. I'll be slowly working on getting those in place: which do we prefer? And people like Julian of Norwich are listed as Julian, because that's the best I can think of.

I lost ALL the html coding and connections linking works. GRRRRR!

If an author is listed without a work, and you can suggest a specific work, please do!

I also added Anne Clifford's "Diary" because, really, no one else did, and it made me SAD!

Here goes:

The NEXT DRAFT of the REALLY dead women writers meme!

Contributors, with my grateful thanks. Once again, special thanks to Mon for coming up with the idea of a women writers meme and being gracious when I made one for REALLY dead women writers.

And Gladly Wolde (S)he lerne (History Geek)

Anthony

Bitch PhD

The Blog that Ate Manhattan (tbtam)

Dr. Crazy - ?

J. Dryden - ?

Early Modern Notes (Sharon)

Heo Cwaeth

Hieronimo - ?

Household Opera (Amanda)

Jenny D - ?

Karl the Grouchy Medievalist - ?

La Lecturess

Laustichirps

Medieval Woman

My So Called (ABD) Life (Mon)

Penny L. Richards - ?

Phantom Scribbler - ?

Philobiblon

Purple Elephant’s Corner

Quod She (Dr. Virago)

Self Portrait As (Holly)

Styley Geek - ?

Swan Dive (Weezy)


And now, without further ado!

The REALLY dead women writers meme (so far...)

Anonymous - The Floure and the Leafe (See Quod She for explanation)

Anonymous - Eliza's Babes or The Virgin's Offering (1652)

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (Italian, 1718-1799) - mathematical and philosophical treatises, including Propositiones Philosophicae (1738) and Analytical Institutions

Andal (Tamil Religious Poet) - ?

Angela of Foligno -

Anne Askew - The Examinations of Anne Askew

Mary Astell - A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Some Reflections upon Marriage

Jane Austen – Lady Susan, Love and Freindship, etc (like I’d keep HER off?)

Abigail Abbot Bailey - The Memoirs of Abigail Abbot Bailey (1790s)

Martha Ballad - The Diary of Martha Ballard 1785- 1812 (or just read A Midwife’s Tale)

Anna Lætitia Barbauld (1743-1825) - Hymns in Prose for Children

Baudonivia - Vita of Saint Radegund

Aphra Behn - Oroonoko

Frau Ava - "Johannes," "Leben Jesu," "Antichrist," "Das Jüngste Gericht"

Bradstreet, Anne - collected poems

St. Bridget - hymns, Revelations

Fanny Burney - Evelina

Elizabeth Cary – The Tragedy of Mariam

Catherine of Sienna - ?

Margaret Cavendish – The Blazing World, The Atomic Poems

Susanna Centlivre - ?

Christine de Pisan (aka Pizan) – Book of the City of Ladies, Book of the Path of Long Study, Christine's Vision

Anne Clifford - Diary

Mary Collier – The Woman’s Labour

An Collins - Divine Songs and Meditations (1653)

Anna Comnena - The Alexiad

Mary Cooper The Diary of Mary Cooper

Dhuoda- Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman's Counsel for Her Son (at Sunshine for Women) and a dual-language version from Cambridge UP

Elizabeth Drinker The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth Century Woman

Maria Edgeworth - ?

Eloise – The Letters of Eloise and Abelard (well, hers, anyways)

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz - Fama y obras póstumas

La Comtessa de Dia - "A chantar m'er" & other Trobairitz poetry

Sarah Fyge Egerton – The Female Advocate

Elizabeth Elstob, The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue (1715).

'Ephelia' - Female Poems On Several Occasions (c. 1679)

Margaret Fell - Women's Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed by the Scriptures (1666)

Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson

Sarah Fielding - ?

Anne Finch - Poems

Hannah W. Foster - The Coquette

Luise Kulmus Gottsched (German, 1713-1762) - plays, poetry, translation

Hadewijch devotional poet (13th century) - ?

Queen Hatshepsut - Speech of the Queen

Mary Hays - ?

Eliza Haywood - The History of Miss Betsey Thoughtless

Mary Sidney Herbert – see Mary Sidney

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - Scivias and Liber Divinorum Operum

Hrostvitha of Gandersheim (c.930-c.1002) - Plays Gallicanus & Dulcitius

Eleanor Hull - A Commentary on the Penitential Psalms

Huneberc of Heidenheim's - Hodoeporicon of St. Willibald (8th century, Latin)

Lucy Hutchinson (1620-1681) - Order and Disorder

Mary Jemison - The Diary of Mary Jemison

Julian of Norwich - Revelations of Divine Love

Lady Kasa - ?

Bathsua Makin (1600-1675) - An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen

Kempe, Margery - The Book of Margery Kempe

Sarah Kemble Knight - The Journal of Madame Knight 1666-1727

Louise Labbe (Labe?) - ?

Lanyer, Aemilia - Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum

Anne Locke (aka Ane Loke, etc) – Meditations of a Penitent Sinner

Leonor Lopez - Autobiography

De la Riviere Manley (Mary De La Riviere Manley) – The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians

Marguerite de Navarre - "L'Heptameron"

Marie de France – Lais of Marie de France

Gwerful Mechain - Poems

Mechtild of Magdebourg - The Flowing Light of the Godhead

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu - ?

Murasaki Shikubu - The Tale of Genji

Amelia Opie - ?

The Paston Women - The Paston Letters

Perpetua - Passions of Perpetua and Felicity

Katherine Phillips - Poems

Eliza Lucas Pinckney - The Letterbook of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1739-1762

Plumpton family (Dame Anges Plumpton, Dame Isabel Plumpton, Dame Elizabeth de la Pole) - Plumpton Letters

Margaret Porete - Mirror of Simple Souls

Ann Radcliffe - The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Monk

Clara Reeve (English, 1729-1807) - The Old English Baron (1778), The School for Widows (1791)
Veronica Franco Rime (1575) - ?

Robinson, Mary (1758-1800) - Beaux and Belles of England Mrs. Mary Robinson, Written by Herself, With the lives of the Duchesses of Gordon and Devonshire Poems and Sappho and Phaon.

Mary Rowlandson The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (available online)
Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple
Sappho - ?

Jane Sharp – The Midwives Book

Frances Sheridan - ?

Sei Shonagon - The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon

Mary Sidney – The Triumph of Death (translation of Petrarch), Psalms

Rachel Speght - Mouzell for Melastomus and Mortalities Memorandum

Gaspara Stampa - ?

Stonor family (Mary Barantyne (sister to William Stonor), Jane Stonor, Elizbeth Stonor, Anne Stonor) - The Stonor Letters

Teresa of Avila - Life

Lucy Terry - "Bar Fights"

Chen Tong, Tan Ze and Qian Yi - The Peony Pavilion: Commentary Edition by Wu Wushan's Three Wives

Trotula - The Diseases of Women

Elizabeth Tudor – Poems, Speeches, Letters

Phillis Wheatley - The Poems of Phillis Wheatley

Isabella Whitney - The Copy of a Letter, lately written in meeter by a yonge Gentilwoman: to her unconstant lover (1567) and A Sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posy: Containing a Hundred and Ten Philosophical Flowers (1573)

Betje Wolff (Dutch, 1738-1804) - Historie van mejuffrouw Sara Burgerhart (1782)

Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication of the Rights of Women

Susanna Wright (1697-1784) – Poems?

Wroth, Lady Mary - Urania, Poems

What, women wrote before 1800?

There's a meme going around; the "female author's meme," it's called. Now, I'm not criticizing the people who've done it, nope, I'm happy to get reading ideas from folks. I saw that Kermit did it, and Kermit links to Phantom Scribbler, who links to Slow and Steady, who links to Mon at My So Called (ABD) Life. Mon says she developed it from several top book lists around the web; recalling her list in March for Black literature, she decided to honor women, too.

That's a GREAT idea. Seriously, yay Mon.

But, can I just ask that we look back a little and include some women who wrote a bit earlier? (And the absence I'm sure reflects absences in the lists Mon was looking at.)

Partly my frustration comes from being 400 years behind in my reading. Partly from just being behind.

But the list reflects for me the way that women today often treat historical women. Women's studies classes and women's writing classes often seem to teach or assume that women before, say, 1800, really aren't important, or didn't write, or were just so oppressed as to be totally uninteresting, or whatever.

As someone who does earlier lit, I've long gotten the sense from some feminist colleagues that my work is invalid, that I can't possibly be a feminist scholar (not because, apparently, of my massive personal failings, but because Shakespeareans can't be feminists in the popular imagination).

It's as if feminist scholars really believe that Virginia Woolf's inability to find earlier women writers reflects their real absence rather than the difficulties of doing good historical research into women writers at the time. You know, difficulties like not having easy access to Pollard and Redgrave's Short Title Catalogue, perhaps? (The earliest date I can quickly find for the STC is 1937, referring to the microfilm series. No doubt it's earlier, but I couldn't find it. The earliest copy my library has is 1945, and we don't have the microfilm series.)

So, in honor of really dead writers everywhere (my favorite kind), I'd like to create a meme of really dead women writers! As with all writers, the deader the better here! Let's say, dead for at least 300 years, or so?

Here's the idea: I'll put in five women writers. If you're interested, pick up the list, add five more of your favorites, and drop me a line at Bardiacblogger at yahoo dot com to check your site. With even a few contributors, we'll get a great meme with fewer of my idiosyncracies than if I do it myself. (And yes, it will probably end up Euro-centered, but I'd love to learn more about non-Euro earlier women writers, too, so add them in, please!)

The (draft) REALLY DEAD WOMEN WRITERS meme.

Behn, Aphra - Oroonoko

Christine de Pisan (aka Pizan) - The Book of the City of Ladies

Julian of Norwich - Revelations of Divine Love

Locke, Anne (aka Ane Lok, etc) - A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner

Marie de France - The Lais of Marie de France

The Winter's Tale and Friday poetry blogging

Last night was the final installment of my Winter's Tale discussion group series at the local library, and, as you'd guess, we talked about Act 5, which is probably my favorite piece of theater. It's hard to imagine the restraint it would take to write 5.2, with all the theatrical promise of the Shepherd's revelation, Perdita and Leontes' reunion, and Polixenes and Leontes' reconciliation, as reported action. But then there's 5.3, which packs such punch.

I'm really glad I applied and got to do this series, because it's been a really neat experience, and it's been just completely different to get to talk about this play with adults. I have to admit, I have no problem saying words like "vagina" and "penis" and "cuckold" in a class of mostly 18-25 or so year olds, but it felt very strange the first day, explaining innuendo and entendre to people of mostly my parents' generation.

I knew it would be okay, though, because after explaining the innuendos implicit in much of Act 1 on the first evening, when we got to the speech where Leontes talks about a wife being "sluiced" by another man (1.2.192, in Orgel's Oxford ed.), they all giggled. When I told them I thought I didn't actually need to explain that one, they laughed out loud. (We most of us really never grow up, do we?)

They gave me a really nice card, too, at the end. I definitly have the warm fuzzies!

So, here's the question of the day: Was Hermione dead, a statue made, and brought to life through some kind of magic? Or was Hermione alive the whole time, hidden by Paulina, and brought to light in this mode? Or something else happened?

(There's another question: can anyone think of a kid who survives a Shakespeare play? I can think of a couple infants--Perdita, Elizabeth, maybe Aaron's son [though not for long]--but kids seem to die in droves.)

My students generally go with the Hermione alive and in hiding for 15 years. The crowd last night were mostly with the alive and in hiding for 15 years idea, too.

Me? I go with the statue all the way.

There's certainly precedent for statues coming to life in the Pygmalion and Gallathea (as she's later called) story, right?

Also, I don't really think Paulina's one to lie, especially in Act 3, about Hermione's death. Leontes goes to view her body and talks about burying her with Mamillius, and I think he would have noticed if her corpse were missing. He says in 5.3 that he saw the body and thought it was dead.

Finally, there's just the magic of it. If she's just been hiding, it's Much Ado rehash, except not so fun or funny.

It seems to me that the romances take supernatural involvement very seriously: in The Winter's Tale, the Oracle's said to be miraculous and shown to be correct; in The Tempest, Prospero's magic is clearly real and potentially dangerous, Sycorax was powerful enough to trap Ariel in the Pine tree, and Ariel's definitely something powerful; in Pericles, the vision part is very magical; and in Cymbeline, Posthumous's dream is for real.

On the other hand, few comedies really take real magic seriously (A Midsummer Night's Dream being the prime exception), and are more likely to play with parlor tricks and hormones. I don't think The Winter's Tale ends with a parlor trick, I guess. I want it to end with something supernatural, special, magical.

The world I live in lacks magic. And I desperately want some magic, someone lost or dead returning.

But then there's Antigonus; Paulina finally learns for sure that her husband's dead, and how he died, and she reminds us of that when she says she'll lament for him until she's lost. If Paulina can do the statue trick with Hermione, why not with Antigonus?

And what's with Leontes' response? I mean, really, does he think Camillo's some sort of consolation prize for her?

I think what's happening there is that Shakespeare is having Leontes tie up lose ends, even if it's sort of inadequate, because as the king, the patriarch and all, he has the power to declare her mourning over, and it's over. Or if it's not, no one can acknowledge that, even Paulina. And we as an audience can go along with it, because it's the end of the play, and we're ready.

Still, Paulina does get to bring up her pain. It's like the return of the repressed, so it's not really completely suppressed, even by Leontes' marriage proposal (and no clue how Camillo feels about it, either).

It also handily returns Paulina to patriarchal control, and if she's really that danged magical, early modern theater audiences, or Shakespeare, might have felt better about that.


In honor of Friday poetry blogging, here's C.S. Lewis's poem on the matter (thanks to my colleague who shared this with me yesterday afternoon):

"HERMIONE IN THE HOUSE OF PAULINA"
--C. S. Lewis
How soft it rains, how nourishingly soft and green
Has grown the dark humility of this low house
Where sunrise never enters, where I have not seen
The moon by night nor heard the footfall of a mouse,
Nor looked on any face but yours
Nor changed my posture in my place of rest
For fifteen years--oh how this quiet cures
My pain and sucks the burning from my breast.

It sucked out all the poison of my will and drew
All hot rebellion from me, all desire to break
The silence you commanded me. . . . Nothing to do,
Nothing to fear or wish for, not a choice to make,
Only to be; to hear no more
Cock-crowing duty calling me to rise,
But slowly thus to ripen laid in store
In this dim nursery near your watching eyes.

Pardon, great spirit, whose tall shape like a golden tower
Stands over me or seems upon slow wings to move,
Coloring with life my paleness, with returning power,
By sober ministrations of severest love;
Pardon, that when you brought me here,
Still drowned in bitter passion, drugged with life,
I did not know . . . pardon, I thought you were
Paulina, old Antigonus' young wife.

Strut

I saw him again yesterday afternoon, this time alone. He looked good. I pulled over again.

The first time I saw him was the other morning, with about 10 others (yeah, I took time to count). I stopped my car, trying not to be too obvious while I admired what was clearly much to be admired. He wanted to be noticed, and yes, I noticed him.

Clearly, he was something very special. He looked, well, there's no way for me to adequately say, but I'll go with "fine," superlatives inadequate to describe him.

He brought it. He came to play. He had it all going on. Whatever saying works for you, think of it and think of him.

He stood, head raised, pacing slowly, taking time with each step, legs muscular and perfectly formed. His chest was full, upper limbs hanging relaxed, but not really relaxed, let's say, fully displayed to best advantage.

And his . . . tail. Perfection.

Unbelievably, the others around him seemed not to even notice, just had their heads down, snacking, doing their own thing, paying him no mind, unimpressed, whatever.

But him, total confidence, readiness, waiting. Waiting for the others to realize just how hot he is.

Even from a distance, I could practically smell the testosterone. Oh, yeah. No question. Total stud.

The way he moved, well, if there's an Intelligent Designer, let's just say she has a wicked sense of humor.

What a turkey.

Conferencing

I've cancelled my writing class meetings for most of the week, and instead scheduled individual 20 minute meetings with each of my writing students to talk about their research papers, and whatever else seems useful.

Doing conferences is challenging because the research topics my students choose are all over the place, and I'm trying to help them find answers to their questions, or more often, resources to find answers to their questions (have I mentioned lately how much I love librarians?).

Students who have irritating habits in class (like chatting with their neighbors while someone else is trying to contribute to class discussion) are often really wonderful in a conference. Sometimes it seems like they disrupt class not because they're careless (which some are), but because they really want some attention, and conferencing gives them a legitimate way to get attention, so they really shine.

I like to think I give good office hour. But boy, is it time consuming!

All my students are pretty much working desperately on one or another research type paper, including in my other classes. So far, Chaucer folks are turning up in office hours to discuss their work in pleasing numbers, but I'm worried that only a few theory folks have dropped by so far. I think it's time to light a match in class or something (metaphorically, of course!)

My body class - more brainstorming

A while back now, I posted about an opportunity to teach a class for a special interdisciplinary thing, and we brainstormed a bit. Thanks again for the great help you all gave me.

I ordered a couple books to check out, and because, you know, books! Then, I put things off to teach and grade and whine about the cold. Then book orders came due, but I ignored them, because really, who can think that far ahead? So I put things aside. Then a few weeks ago, some of the interdisciplinary students sent me an email about a presentation thing for professors to come tell the students about classes next year. I said I'd come, and then, predictably, left things in the backroads of my mind.

But, today's the day, it turns out, and bright and early. So over dinner last night with one of my teammates, I hashed over what I'm thinking, and I thought I'd share it with you all. Once again, please feel free to make suggestions, including suggestions for reorganizations and cuts.

I'm thinking of the course in three sections, not really equal, and I'll probably have to pare things down some (okay, a lot), but here's some basic idea.

Section 1: Making bodies, making sex/gender

Readings: some Laquer (and yes, EEBO makes looking at some of the older texts directly a really good idea!), Butler, Middlesex (which my teammate RAVED about tonight; thanks, TBTAM!). Probably I'll also get in an early modern medical text or two, because who can resist cooking theories? (There are some suggestions I haven't finished looking up, like Kermit's subjection suggestion) Maybe part of Iris Marion Young's "On Female Body Experience: Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays." (Thanks, AW!)

Section 2: Bodies/parts - this part's the center of the course, and probably too big

Readings: Scarey, The Body in Pain, some Bakhtin on the grotesque and classical bodies (ooo, and pictures of sculptures!), maybe some Carolyn Walker Bynum and medieval pictures, and the responses Dr. Virago suggested, Titus Andronicus (okay, I should also do some old mythology, after all, who can resist when someone bakes kids in a pasty!), Frankenstein, and Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl, which is an amazing hypertext rethinking of Frankenstein AND L Frank Baum's The Patchwork Girl (if you don't know that, you know Baum's more famous work, The Wizard of Oz). Maybe a bit of Foucault's "good old days" about breaking people on the wheel and drawings and quarterings. Probably some media stuff on the US military use of torture and such, and ethics. (Suggestions, folks?) (okay, I really can't fit all this in, but I'm still brainstorming)

Section 3: Dispositions (because, really, I'm love fake etymologies and wordplay; I've been reading too much Derrida lately)

Readings: Roach's Stiff, or maybe another book someone suggested that I still have to get hold of, then some ethics readings a philosophy prof shared (but which I stupidly left at the office). One of my departmental colleagues (oddly enough) has been doing some research with a medical group, and one of the members of the group has an interest in medical ethics, and may be willing to talk to the class about such things. So that would be cool, eh? And I'm thinking Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" will fit in here (have I mentioned I'm a cyborg? Always freaks my students the heck out.)

The brainstorming so far is huge, and I'm leaving SO MUCH OUT! But I can't fit everything in, so better to fit in what I can, and then put in to teach it again and do a new morph next time, with different foci.

Addendum: The presentation thing went fairly well; another instructor there is doing a course similar to mine on corpses and such. I have no idea why they put both courses in the same semester, but there it goes.

I may cut out the corpse part of mine, but he's not thinking of the kinds of corpse issues I am, really (except now he's talking about using Stiff).

And as I was sitting there, I realized that the Diary of Lady Anne Clifford, the section where she's dragging around her Mom's body in the lead lined casket, would be really great. So I guess I'm still adding stuff. /sigh

Office Doors

The offices in my department are mostly on one floor, laid out in a square, offices on the outside, then a hallway, then interior departmental offices and such inside. That means each instructor has a window to the world, though not necessarily a great view (my window looks out on the gravel roof of the next wing); still there's at least a view of some natural light, and I'm VERY grateful for that. The interior offices, where our admin assistants and student workers work, offer no such pleasure.

The department office door is nearly across from my office, nearer the building elevator doors. There's a huge window in the office, looking out to the hallway, which eases what might otherwise feel claustrophobic in there. And there's a large sign indicating that it's our department hanging into the hallway, but it seems that few people look up, because I often get someone walking into my office, asking if I'm the English department. My snide side wants to ask if I LOOK like a department, but usually I just point to the huge window and door and head them there. I really don't know why people miss that door as they walk by to ask me if I'm the department, but someone does it at least three or four times a week.

Our office doors have a fairly large window, a vertical opening from about midway to near the top of the door, about 6 inches in width (and yes, all jokes about women and judging distances apply, thanks).

Our general practice is to have office doors open when we're in the office; it's not a rule or anything, but that's how most people work. Or at least, that's how it seems. Because the other practice is that most of us cover the window in some way so that if we're in the office with the door closed, someone can't really look in. Choices for the covering are varied from art or wrapping paper to a street sign (positioned vertically), to just plain paper. The more talented amongst my colleagues manage to create enough privacy that you can't tell if the light's on or anybody's home. You can tell from outside if my light's on, pretty much, but there's sufficient privacy for my needs. (One the other hand, I'm not changing clothes in here if I can help it.)

Open doors allow some little natural light into the hallway during the day, making the whole floor seem more friendly and inviting, and less fluorescent. Open doors also give me a sense that people are around, which I like. On the inside of my office door, rarely seen, hangs my regalia in a nice dust cover thing, and also whatever jacket or coat and hat I may be wearing, depending on the season.

I like having my office door open when I'm in. For one thing, the office seems a lot larger with the door open. But I'm also weirdly picky. I don't like people to just walk in; in fact, the only people who really just walk on in are students. And oddly enough, some of them walk in if the office is open even if I'm not actually IN the office. Some even walk in when I'm in the office with someone, which seems most odd to me.

I usually have office hours with my doors open, unless we're discussing something that seems to need privacy. I think that's also true for most of my colleagues.

Some of my colleagues leave their doors slightly ajar when they're in, inviting a knock, but not a walk in, perhaps.

We have reasonably prominent office numbers, but no name plates or anything. Instead, we're asked to fill out a little, tiny, miniscule office hour form, which displays our name in 12 point type. A few people have put up bigger name plate things. Really, we all should have something that makes putting offices and people together easier for our students. I've rebelled against the miniscule office hour form, and gotten a big weekly time sheet (on regular sized US academic paper), and labeled and colored (with highlighters, though my ability to stay inside of lines lacks) in my schedule, mostly so that I can tell where I need to go next from across the room. Hey, if I can read it, so can people who want to find me, right?

One either side of my office are colleagues' offices. Well, duh. I like these two colleagues; both are friendly, nice, and so forth. Both also have voices that carry. Okay, to be honest, both have voices that you could hear distinctly on the far side of an open football stadium filled with cheering fans. Both also like to stand in the hall and carry on conversations with people at the far end of the hall. Sometimes, they stand just outside their own door and converse with each other.
That complicates the whole open door thing.

I've asked to move offices this summer, after one of my colleagues retires. I'll be in a much quieter area of the hall. I told another colleague this the other day, and she said that I'd be breaking up "Testosterone Alley." I hadn't thought about the all male-occupied side of the floor there, but I guess that's what they've called it. It cracked me up. At least it's a whole lot more quiet! (And no, we thought it through and there's no "Estrogen Alley"; mostly we're pretty gender mixed through the floor.)

So, in your world, open doors? Big prominent names? Conversational colleagues?

High school readings

I talked to one of our grad students the other day about teaching high school, which is what he wants to do. He's thinking about readings for a class, and talked about Hemingway and Hawthorne.

Flashback. I was a horrid high school student, not horrid in the way of doing lots of drugs or anything even minimally exciting or challenging, but horrid in the way of being a miserable teenager who was marking time. I liked few classes, mostly chemistry and biology, with a side of math. I hated English, especially.

I hated Hemingway and Hawthorne, Dickens, Shakespeare, pretty much everything we read. And especially, I absolutely thought Salinger was the pits. (No, sadly, the Shakespeare wasn't a typo.)

It wasn't that I didn't like to read, though. I don't know why I didn't like anything we read in classes. It wasn't that I was a completely enlightened young feminist, frustrated by reading in my whole high school career (to the best of my memory), exactly ONE work by a woman, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Later, I'd be frustrated by that, but at the time, I really wasn't aware.

Nor was I getting much guidance outside of school about reading. One of my neighbors gave me some books to read from her shelves (and I'm still, to this day, grateful to her), Leon Uris, Michener, books that were way more intellectually challenging than I was reading otherwise. I read several books by both, and learned a lot, even if it was mostly vague, weird, and not really good history.

I don't remember quite how I got into Solzhenitsyn, though it probably had something to do with the cold war, his critique of the USSR, and the Nobel prize a few years earlier. But Solzhenitsyn was, scarily enough, my guide to reading for several years. I read Cancer Ward. Why didn't we read stuff like that in classes? I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. And then I started The Gulag Archipelago, expecting some novel, no doubt, but that's not what I got.

What got me about The Gulag Archipelago was that there were tons of notes (in my English translation), and it was obvious as I read along, understanding maybe a tenth of what I was reading, that there was a world of reading to do, and that Solzhenitsyn pretty much expected his readers to know about all these works. My future nerditude came out, and I started taking notes on the notes, mostly listing the books I obviously should read.

So I started reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I remember reading Norton Critical Editions from the local public library, and thinking that the essays in the back must constitute pretty much everything I should need to know about the works, because that's how little I understood anything about literature. But I knew I really loved reading those novels, trying to figure out characters and their relationships, and why Solzhenitsyn thought I should know about them.

Meanwhile, I failed the Julius Caesar quiz in my high school English class, and never did figure out why I should care what time the clock stopped in Great Expectations. (Yes, I know why it stops now, but I still don't care. I know! I should try rereading Dickens, because I hear he gets better with age.)

Flashforward. I wish I could figure out why I hated my English classes in high school even though I loved reading, because if I could, I could do a lot better job helping our education students choose texts. I'm not sure I think the primary way students should be taught to read is through identification with an author. That is, I don't think white men need to read works by white men so they can identify with the author or something. I loved reading those Russian authors, even though they were male and I had nothing in common with them or their characters, certainly far less than with Salinger's characters.

But I think it's vital that high school students get some real variety in periods, identifications, genres, approaches, attitudes, themes. I just don't know that I could predict what I would have engaged with in classes as a high schooler.

Perhaps I was just in a minimally rebellious mode, choosing things to read that were pretty alien (and frankly unwelcome) in my family and social contexts, rather than rebelling more forcefully in other ways? In which case, just having a book assigned might have prompted a rebellious rejection?

As it is, I gently (I hope) talked to the student about my frustration reading what I'd read in high school, and tried to get our grad student to include writers of color and women, different genres, and to think about using different approaches or working with different projects.

Tagged!

I have to thank Barbados Butterfly for tagging me. Check out her final answer to the best places you've ever been question. It's brilliant and original.

I did a similar meme a while back, but this one's a bit different, and some of my answers probably changed (because I love different books every time I open them, for example). Now on to my mundanity.

Four Jobs I've Had in My Life
1. Lab Rat
2. Mutual Fund clerk
3. Forestry Tech
4. Painter (building, not house)

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
1. The Thin Man - Myrna Loy and William Powell drink enough to pickle a city.
2. Indiscreet, or maybe Arsenic and Old Lace... or just about anything Cary Grant ever made.
3. Top Hat - there's nothing much sillier or better.
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail - and now, for something completely different.

Four Web Sites I Visit Regularly
1. Bitch Ph.D
2. My department email
3. My other internet community site
4. Amazon dot com

Four Favorite Foods
1. Chocolate
2. Artichokes (who the heck ever thought, "hey, look a thistle! Let's steam it and eat it with some lemon butter or mayonaise?" And why aren't they memorialized as a world hero?)
3. Lentils, especially Dal Makhana (sp?)
4. Sashimi or steak walked through the kitchen.

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now
1. On a warm, sunny beach with great clear water
2. On the verge of jumping out of an airplane
3. Muir Woods
4. With M or B or K, just hanging out in the living room.

Four Most Wonderful Places I've Ever Been
1. C's place, drinking hot saki or very cold vodka and talking into the night
2. Galapagos
3. Muir Woods
4. The Everglades

Four Books I Could Read Over and Over
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Seriously I could never be an Austen scholar because I just get slack-jawed and droolly with admiration at her wit.
2. Oranges are not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson. Absolutely stunning, and a GREAT book to teach.
3. The Winter's Tale (or King Lear).
4. St. Erkenwald by maybe the Pearl Poet. The only saint's tale I really love despite being a complete and unabashed athiest.

Four Songs I Could Listen To Every Day
1. "One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer" - John Lee Hooker
2. "Wonderful Tonight" - Eric Clapton.
3. "The Music for the Royal Fireworks" - Handel (add in the umlaut, please!)
4. "Cowgirl in the Sand" - Neil Young

Four Reasons I Blog
1. To put off grading. Like. Right. Now.
2. I really like getting a sense of community with other academics
3. Lit rocks, and it's a blast to teach, and I'd like to get that across to different people.
4. Teaching's a complex art, and I'm thinking "out loud" to try to teach better.

Four People to Tag
I don't know who to tag; I think most of the academics who read here did a similar meme a month or three ago. But if you want to do one that's slightly different, here you go! Grab Opportunity by the forelock and go for it!