Grad School Report - Spring 2008 (Week 5)
A long for long sleep. A lazy morning. I crave the coming Saturday with no other desire than to wake up whenever it is I happen to wake up. I am tired. I have rediscovered the dryness of my eyes, the cracking I had forgotten but now remember all too well. . . Cracking behind them when they move, as if some nerve is fused within my skull, and its corrosion must be picked away each time I look left - look right. I feel like a lot of my grad school reports have begun with some allusion to my exhaustion, and then I undermine its expression by going on in detail about every class that week.
Here I am doing it again.
Monday. I got to campus to do the TA thing, but after leading the class in a discussion of "Mr. Flood's Party," the professor sent them off to the library for the refresher class on research. I did not have to go. I didn't go.
Wednesday. I got to campus to do the TA thing, but when I arrived the door to the writing lab was still locked (wouldn't want people to walk off with any of those Dell desktops or flatscreen monitors), so I waited in the hall as more and more of the class arrived, and I found myself being questioned about what I thought about the professor's teaching style. Not being one to lie, but knowing better than to speak ill, I said nothing. Instead, I turned the question around to the student asking (though from the attitudes of the other students interjecting and observing, I got the impression that he was speaking for them all). "I think he's terrible," the student said. "I thought English 2 was supposed to be about learning to write a research paper, and we haven't talked about that at all. We're going to be writing about these plays we are assigned, but we never talk about them. He just shows them to us. All we do is sit at the computer and write about poetry."
"I hate that poetry stuff," another student added.
"What are we doing today? Do you know if we are going to start talking about doing a research paper, or at least talking about the plays?" The first student continued.
"I have no idea what he has planned," I replied. "You guys think I know more than I do, but I don't know any more than you. Each day is a surprise for me. Honestly, I thought he would have brought up the plays, or the long-term project by now as well."
The discussion continued. And I mentioned that I would be handling a few more classes myself in the future, or at least I was supposed to.
"I wish you would, that would be great. He just drones on and on."
I felt simultaneously pleased and embarrassed. Truth is, none of them know anything about my teaching except for that second class meeting, when I took over the second half and the one-on-one stuff I have done with them. It is more about their disatisfaction with the class than any preference for I handle things.
I can't say I really blame them. When we finally got into the classroom, the professor put The Glass Menagerie on and we spent the first hour of the class watching it. He doesn't say a word to the class. No greeting. No explanation. He just waited until he thought most people were there and then he turned it on. It was a good production, with Katherine Hepburn and a very young Sam Waterston. . . but still. Afterwards, he led a discussion on Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," a deliciously creepy poem and then class was dismissed.
It makes me feel like some public high school class with a teacher trying to kill time and spoon feed the students. I am not sure what to do about it, except to perhaps email him and just ask when/if I will get to lead the class again. I am glad, however, that the students feel comfortable enough to talk with me and seem pleased with the help I give them.
Back to Monday in Lit of the Middle Ages we began our discussion of A Monk's Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent, and the class discussion was only marginally more interesting than the text. No, that is not even true. It just pointed some things out to me that made the text slightly more interesting, but only slightly. We only discussed the first section of the book, and it is the third section that interested me most because it describes the founding a commune by serfs and then an uprising when it is broken up by the nobles. The uprising is great because Guibert goes into great detail of how the serfs killed the nobles and burned their homes and the cathedral. My natural sympathies being with the serfs, I cheered for noble blood! In our required weekly posting to the class blog, I wrote that the church (by the teachings of Christ) should naturally ally itself with the poor and downtrodden, but since the they instead ally themselves with the ruling class that ensures the status quo it benefits from in terms of its own wealth and power, it uses its admonition against violence as a way to attempt to control people - when violent uprising is the only antidote to the depredations of the ruling class. Meanwhile the crooked bishops and ambitious nobles are all conspiring against each other and murdering people in church with something resembling impunity.
Tuesday. In A Brief History of the Lyric, we got back our in-class writing assignments from the week before (I got lots of 'goods' - It was an graded assignment), and afterwards we read and discussed some songs and poems moving forward through time slowly but surely. The professor expressed his unhappiness with the week before's class, saying that he felt like he talked to much and it was not lively enough. . . But sure enough, this past week was the same. It is not his fault really. He is an affable and intelligent chap, clearly sensitive to the spirit of the poems we are discussing (and I mean 'sensitive' in a good way), but the class itself is dead. I try. I talk. A few other people talk, too - sometimes - but the contibutions are brief and not while not dim or irrelevant, they also don't seem to take off, to lead to that exchange between the students' ideas that is needed for a good class discussion. I guess my comments must be the same way. Thinking on it now, I feel bad for the ole prof. . . But it is certainly making what should be a great class into a sub-par class.
I guess I am not all that happy with my two classes this semester.
But the class I am auditing? Best class I've had at Brooklyn College hands down. Lopalia LoBats: This week (and next) we are discussing Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude and I have greatly enjoyed reading it for a third time. I cannot say enough how surprisingly rich of a text it is, deeply encoded, and using a specificity of historical and pop cultural references to evoke Brooklyn without. . . Well, I was going to say without the sickly sweet sugar-coating of nostalgia. . . But there is nostalgia in there, it is just disrupted and undermined. While reading this time, I used a green highlighter, while the last time through I used a yellow one, so I kept feeling like there was added layer of encoding I had provided in that last reading, to which there is now another in green due to the sharpened focus of my lens while doing this reading. Add to this the increasing amount of marginalia - notes in black ink with thoughts and arrows and page number references that link passages together to build on those thoughts. It is probably the most marked up book I own at this point, and I LOVE writing in books. I am really getting to know this text well, which is a good thing because it features prominently in my master's thesis.
The discussion was great, and most of us in the small class agree that this is the best class we are taking/have taken. We finalized the syllabus a bit more, narrowing down the order of the texts we are reading, and what they will be paired with. Absalom, Absalom! was paired with The Fortress of Solitude, and next we will be reading The Sound & the Fury, and will be pairing it up with Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn (one of my favorite books from my 20s and my contribution to the syllabus (along with Flannery O'Connor, which will be paired up with Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn)).
This time through I have been paying more attention to the language of "middle spaces," a phrase Lethem uses at the end of the novel, that left me puzzled the first two times, but this time, I began to find a lot more references to it - just not in those words. In particular, I started to note the language of comic panels (comic books figure largely in the text) and how. . . well, let me quote my post to the class blog:
The "middle space" is [among other things] a reference to the space between comic book panels. This space between the panels is mentioned several times in text and I think it refers to the assumption required of a comic book reader to connect the scene and text from one panel to the next, and more broadly from one issue of a comic book to another, and broader still, once comic book title to another. This assumed knowledge is something that cannot really be explained and usually cannot be asked about anyway, because an attempt at a linear explanation of the complex web of relationships and identities disrupts the linear narrative we apply to our experience.
I also wrote some about the use of the phrase "Fortess of Solitude" both within the text and as the title of the novel. Another quote:
Dylan describes his father’s retreat into his studio a 'Fortress of Solitude', where he tried "to carve a middle space on a daily basis (510)" and I cannot help but think of that fortress in terms of Superman’s outsider status. The comic book version of that isolated arctic fortress was where the Kryptonian tried to carve his own space away from his obligation to humanity. It was a place he filled with the artifacts of his destroyed homeworld as an attempt at creating a space between the confines of that obligation and the unknowable authenticity of his origins.
When I brought this up in class, I could not help but interupt myself and say, "Man, I find it impossible to talk about comic books without feeling like a total dork." I avoided eye contact as I said it, feeling myself to be that awkward nerd I sometimes am, talking about some shit in detail that other people don't give a shit about, or consider some dorky shit beneath their notice. . . I mean, I know I should not feel that way and the comic book stuff is central to unpacking the text. . . But I am conditioned. The funny thing is that I can write about comic book stuff without a problem, but as soon as it comes out of my mouth. . . I feel what roybatty would call "douche chills." All I can do is hope I that I don't end reading any texts for class that are complimented by a intimate knowledge of role-playing games, for then my crowning as King Dork will be complete.
Yes, in case it is not clear, I am a self-loathing geek.
Anyway, have I mentioned how smart and discerning the folks in this class are? I just really love listening to their points of view, and their unpacking of this or that, giving me new leads and new ways to think about the text. The five other people in the class are as responsible for the success of this class as the professor is, who is also great at facilitating discussion and never acts as if she holds a monopoly on knowledge.
She gave back my final paper from last semester Literature of Brooklyn class (also on The Fortress of Solitude) and I took time to read it on the bus back home, and for perhaps the first time in my life I read a paper I wrote and instead of immediately feeling that there was something I could have done differently or better, I was struck with how well-written it really is. Looking it over I was brimming with confidence that my master's thesis (which I saw this as practice for) is going to rock on toast. As the prof wrote in her concluding comments, "Well, you have written a precis for a 200 to 400 page dissertation. This is great!" I am not saying it was perfect - Just that it was something I felt proud of.
In other news: I been working on that poem I started a couple of weeks ago. . . You know, the one about the pigeon trapped in the subway station? Been trying to make it into a sonnet. Maybe I'll write a few different versions and see what I come up with. I find trying to untie the trochaic knots in the lines a fun, if frustrating, thought exercise. Tomorrow is mi abuela's birthday. Her actual birthday, as she only has one every four years. At lunch I went out to buy a card to bring to her after work tomorrow, and I'll probably get her some flowers, too. . . Not sure what else there is to get someone who is 88 (or 22, depending on how you count). . . But I was really annoyed that I could not find cards in Spanish anywhere around here (I work in the Village). . . I am sure if I had wandered further I would have eventually found some, but I did not have all day to search. . . This is fucking America! How can a store that sells cards not have some in Spanish. Ridiculous! People need to get with the program.
And Saturday? Saturday, I will sleep.
Here I am doing it again.
Monday. I got to campus to do the TA thing, but after leading the class in a discussion of "Mr. Flood's Party," the professor sent them off to the library for the refresher class on research. I did not have to go. I didn't go.
Wednesday. I got to campus to do the TA thing, but when I arrived the door to the writing lab was still locked (wouldn't want people to walk off with any of those Dell desktops or flatscreen monitors), so I waited in the hall as more and more of the class arrived, and I found myself being questioned about what I thought about the professor's teaching style. Not being one to lie, but knowing better than to speak ill, I said nothing. Instead, I turned the question around to the student asking (though from the attitudes of the other students interjecting and observing, I got the impression that he was speaking for them all). "I think he's terrible," the student said. "I thought English 2 was supposed to be about learning to write a research paper, and we haven't talked about that at all. We're going to be writing about these plays we are assigned, but we never talk about them. He just shows them to us. All we do is sit at the computer and write about poetry."
"I hate that poetry stuff," another student added.
"What are we doing today? Do you know if we are going to start talking about doing a research paper, or at least talking about the plays?" The first student continued.
"I have no idea what he has planned," I replied. "You guys think I know more than I do, but I don't know any more than you. Each day is a surprise for me. Honestly, I thought he would have brought up the plays, or the long-term project by now as well."
The discussion continued. And I mentioned that I would be handling a few more classes myself in the future, or at least I was supposed to.
"I wish you would, that would be great. He just drones on and on."
I felt simultaneously pleased and embarrassed. Truth is, none of them know anything about my teaching except for that second class meeting, when I took over the second half and the one-on-one stuff I have done with them. It is more about their disatisfaction with the class than any preference for I handle things.
I can't say I really blame them. When we finally got into the classroom, the professor put The Glass Menagerie on and we spent the first hour of the class watching it. He doesn't say a word to the class. No greeting. No explanation. He just waited until he thought most people were there and then he turned it on. It was a good production, with Katherine Hepburn and a very young Sam Waterston. . . but still. Afterwards, he led a discussion on Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," a deliciously creepy poem and then class was dismissed.
It makes me feel like some public high school class with a teacher trying to kill time and spoon feed the students. I am not sure what to do about it, except to perhaps email him and just ask when/if I will get to lead the class again. I am glad, however, that the students feel comfortable enough to talk with me and seem pleased with the help I give them.
Back to Monday in Lit of the Middle Ages we began our discussion of A Monk's Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent, and the class discussion was only marginally more interesting than the text. No, that is not even true. It just pointed some things out to me that made the text slightly more interesting, but only slightly. We only discussed the first section of the book, and it is the third section that interested me most because it describes the founding a commune by serfs and then an uprising when it is broken up by the nobles. The uprising is great because Guibert goes into great detail of how the serfs killed the nobles and burned their homes and the cathedral. My natural sympathies being with the serfs, I cheered for noble blood! In our required weekly posting to the class blog, I wrote that the church (by the teachings of Christ) should naturally ally itself with the poor and downtrodden, but since the they instead ally themselves with the ruling class that ensures the status quo it benefits from in terms of its own wealth and power, it uses its admonition against violence as a way to attempt to control people - when violent uprising is the only antidote to the depredations of the ruling class. Meanwhile the crooked bishops and ambitious nobles are all conspiring against each other and murdering people in church with something resembling impunity.
Tuesday. In A Brief History of the Lyric, we got back our in-class writing assignments from the week before (I got lots of 'goods' - It was an graded assignment), and afterwards we read and discussed some songs and poems moving forward through time slowly but surely. The professor expressed his unhappiness with the week before's class, saying that he felt like he talked to much and it was not lively enough. . . But sure enough, this past week was the same. It is not his fault really. He is an affable and intelligent chap, clearly sensitive to the spirit of the poems we are discussing (and I mean 'sensitive' in a good way), but the class itself is dead. I try. I talk. A few other people talk, too - sometimes - but the contibutions are brief and not while not dim or irrelevant, they also don't seem to take off, to lead to that exchange between the students' ideas that is needed for a good class discussion. I guess my comments must be the same way. Thinking on it now, I feel bad for the ole prof. . . But it is certainly making what should be a great class into a sub-par class.
I guess I am not all that happy with my two classes this semester.
But the class I am auditing? Best class I've had at Brooklyn College hands down. Lopalia LoBats: This week (and next) we are discussing Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude and I have greatly enjoyed reading it for a third time. I cannot say enough how surprisingly rich of a text it is, deeply encoded, and using a specificity of historical and pop cultural references to evoke Brooklyn without. . . Well, I was going to say without the sickly sweet sugar-coating of nostalgia. . . But there is nostalgia in there, it is just disrupted and undermined. While reading this time, I used a green highlighter, while the last time through I used a yellow one, so I kept feeling like there was added layer of encoding I had provided in that last reading, to which there is now another in green due to the sharpened focus of my lens while doing this reading. Add to this the increasing amount of marginalia - notes in black ink with thoughts and arrows and page number references that link passages together to build on those thoughts. It is probably the most marked up book I own at this point, and I LOVE writing in books. I am really getting to know this text well, which is a good thing because it features prominently in my master's thesis.
The discussion was great, and most of us in the small class agree that this is the best class we are taking/have taken. We finalized the syllabus a bit more, narrowing down the order of the texts we are reading, and what they will be paired with. Absalom, Absalom! was paired with The Fortress of Solitude, and next we will be reading The Sound & the Fury, and will be pairing it up with Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn (one of my favorite books from my 20s and my contribution to the syllabus (along with Flannery O'Connor, which will be paired up with Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn)).
This time through I have been paying more attention to the language of "middle spaces," a phrase Lethem uses at the end of the novel, that left me puzzled the first two times, but this time, I began to find a lot more references to it - just not in those words. In particular, I started to note the language of comic panels (comic books figure largely in the text) and how. . . well, let me quote my post to the class blog:
The "middle space" is [among other things] a reference to the space between comic book panels. This space between the panels is mentioned several times in text and I think it refers to the assumption required of a comic book reader to connect the scene and text from one panel to the next, and more broadly from one issue of a comic book to another, and broader still, once comic book title to another. This assumed knowledge is something that cannot really be explained and usually cannot be asked about anyway, because an attempt at a linear explanation of the complex web of relationships and identities disrupts the linear narrative we apply to our experience.
I also wrote some about the use of the phrase "Fortess of Solitude" both within the text and as the title of the novel. Another quote:
Dylan describes his father’s retreat into his studio a 'Fortress of Solitude', where he tried "to carve a middle space on a daily basis (510)" and I cannot help but think of that fortress in terms of Superman’s outsider status. The comic book version of that isolated arctic fortress was where the Kryptonian tried to carve his own space away from his obligation to humanity. It was a place he filled with the artifacts of his destroyed homeworld as an attempt at creating a space between the confines of that obligation and the unknowable authenticity of his origins.
When I brought this up in class, I could not help but interupt myself and say, "Man, I find it impossible to talk about comic books without feeling like a total dork." I avoided eye contact as I said it, feeling myself to be that awkward nerd I sometimes am, talking about some shit in detail that other people don't give a shit about, or consider some dorky shit beneath their notice. . . I mean, I know I should not feel that way and the comic book stuff is central to unpacking the text. . . But I am conditioned. The funny thing is that I can write about comic book stuff without a problem, but as soon as it comes out of my mouth. . . I feel what roybatty would call "douche chills." All I can do is hope I that I don't end reading any texts for class that are complimented by a intimate knowledge of role-playing games, for then my crowning as King Dork will be complete.
Yes, in case it is not clear, I am a self-loathing geek.
Anyway, have I mentioned how smart and discerning the folks in this class are? I just really love listening to their points of view, and their unpacking of this or that, giving me new leads and new ways to think about the text. The five other people in the class are as responsible for the success of this class as the professor is, who is also great at facilitating discussion and never acts as if she holds a monopoly on knowledge.
She gave back my final paper from last semester Literature of Brooklyn class (also on The Fortress of Solitude) and I took time to read it on the bus back home, and for perhaps the first time in my life I read a paper I wrote and instead of immediately feeling that there was something I could have done differently or better, I was struck with how well-written it really is. Looking it over I was brimming with confidence that my master's thesis (which I saw this as practice for) is going to rock on toast. As the prof wrote in her concluding comments, "Well, you have written a precis for a 200 to 400 page dissertation. This is great!" I am not saying it was perfect - Just that it was something I felt proud of.
In other news: I been working on that poem I started a couple of weeks ago. . . You know, the one about the pigeon trapped in the subway station? Been trying to make it into a sonnet. Maybe I'll write a few different versions and see what I come up with. I find trying to untie the trochaic knots in the lines a fun, if frustrating, thought exercise. Tomorrow is mi abuela's birthday. Her actual birthday, as she only has one every four years. At lunch I went out to buy a card to bring to her after work tomorrow, and I'll probably get her some flowers, too. . . Not sure what else there is to get someone who is 88 (or 22, depending on how you count). . . But I was really annoyed that I could not find cards in Spanish anywhere around here (I work in the Village). . . I am sure if I had wandered further I would have eventually found some, but I did not have all day to search. . . This is fucking America! How can a store that sells cards not have some in Spanish. Ridiculous! People need to get with the program.
And Saturday? Saturday, I will sleep.