Must knowledge be demonstrable to be valuable?

Alan Bennet's drama and the subsequent film adaptation of The History Boys features a scene in which two of the boys vying for Oxford and Cambridge suddenly get up and begin enacting a dialogue in front of the other boys in the classroom. Having learned this scene (and other shrapnel pieces of cultural knowledge: Gracie Fields' "Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye" and the difference between the conditional and the subjunctive tenses in French), the boys are trying to justify another teacher's "General Studies" class and its goal of creating "well-rounded individuals" by acting out their knowledge. Their teacher Mr. Irwin remarks, having figured out what they are quoting, "God knows why you learned Brief Encounter."

The title of today's blog post comes from a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/education/edlife/edl-24masters-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me) asking whether the Master's degree is the new Bachelor's. In today's economy, the answer is, unfortunately, 'yes.' Reading the article, we find that Master's programs are becoming hyper-specific; we are professionalizing degrees. Who is benefiting from this scenario? Certainly not students who are putting themselves deeper into debt. Answer: schools and companies. Schools fill more seats, make more money. Companies connect with schools, scoop up their best students. The key word here is 'professionalized.' It is not to say that the English or Anthropology Bachelor's doesn't make you qualified, it means that all your knowledge, especially your unquantifiable knowledge (reading The Atlantic, trivia guru, your ability to act out all the melodrama of Brief Encounter) does not fit into the corporate ideology. In sum, because 'the market' is penetrating the walls of 'the institution,' this ideology has infected universities.

If this system didn't involve collusion between businesses and schools, it would be easier for consumers (e.g. students) to change the system, to refuse the status quo. Nonetheless, the system will change. Inevitably, the inflationary value of education will collapse in a tulpenmanie moment. It will only come when the overall educational ideology of the U.S. stops holding college professors on a pedestal as paragons of success and shifts towards an embrace of creativity and individuality. Then, and only then, will corporate ideology shift toward the notion, popular in Residence Life departments, that differences are good; differences make us successful.

Truth: my love of books might not translate into direct profit for my employer. But, my ability to connect with co-workers who also love books might make me a happier employee, a more productive employee, a leader through my creation of strong group dynamics, etc. It is the aforethought to see "random" knowledge" as "indirect" profit.

Turning Ecocriticism into Reality

It's been 15 years since the publication of The Ecocriticism Reader, a forward-thinking anthology put together by Cheryll Glotfelty. Of course, words like ecopoetics and ecocritical are older than the book itself, but this year marks a milestone. In her introduction, Glotfelty speaks of turning her corner of literary studies into a field in which teachers and students engage in active participation in the environment. Glotfelty's tone is one of idealism, but she remains a visionary. Unfortunately, because the contributing writers ostensibly wrote their pieces before Glotfelty's introduction, they do not openly share her interests and sometimes it is unclear what they intend to do other than interpret a text. The result is a seminal book that features a multitude of writers, many of whom are crying stick to the text!

So how do we turn literary studies into a conduit for activism? Teachers must begin by overturning the classroom. The four walls, the uncomfortable desk-chairs, the windowless spaces have got to go! How can we honestly claim to read something in an ecocritical light while making students sit at desks which defy ergonomic logic! Bad for our bodies --they've got to go! Start holding classrooms outside. Yes, even when it's cold. Why talk about the suffering of Native peoples in the mid-November winter? Go outside and understand it! When there's no snow on the ground, ask why. Ask about the experience of New England Natives in contrast to Natives of Cabeza de Vaca's "Florida." How does weather contribute to different texts and in what way can we see weather as a marker of experience? In sum, the classroom must become the last resort, not the common refuge for the safety of our learning.

When we do come inside, everyone must sit at round tables (oh the joys of Harkness!). We constantly lament the status of the environment in our global discussion(s). No one seems to agree and some, who deny that environmental crisis exists, seem not to be listening to anyone at all. Round tables will encourage group discussion and group problem solving. It will increase risk-taking behavior and encourage students to solve long, hard problems (like an environmental crisis) by talking with one another. And even when the environment is not the subject, students may take their skill to the problem or many others, for discussion and hearing what others have to say is so often the solution to a global litany of issues.

Teachers (yes professors, that includes you) need to engage in the greening lifestyle: biking to work, gardens, buying used stuff (despite the reputation of Craigslist, it is a small step toward greening ourselves and our classrooms), and anything they can. In bringing ethics into the classroom, it is no longer satisfactory to bring the ethics of writing and research, the ethics of a discipline, we must adhere to environmental ethics.  Mother Earth must be in our minds when we teach, not only when we teach about the Transcendentalists.

A brief aside: if you have not seen or read Into the Wild, do so --now!

Queering the Kitchen: EpicMealTime

With overflowing booze and bacon, Ernest Hemingway could only be proud. EpicMealTime, the sensational(ized) YouTube cooking channel has become all the rave in the last few months, with its host, a burly Canadian (actually, all three hosts are Canadians) and I couldn't resist discussing them!

Before reading further, check out a few of my favorite episodes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaKcl0Qg13o, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYxO3Y-wOrM&feature=relmfu, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eah23WvLYsQ&feature=relmfu, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xc5wIpUenQ

Michael Warner and Lauren Berlant, in their seminal essay "Sex in Public," theorize that the projection of national culture (i.e. heternormative white culture) subjugates the sexuality of its citizens; consequently, spaces for acting out sexuality (cinemas, clubs, print and online mediums) emerge. In this case, the kitchen becomes the space in which sexuality emerges, a space featuring multiple sexualities, a queer space. In EMT we see the dual narratives of national and globalized identities forming simultaneously as the series develops. The hosts use bacon and syrup as their signifiers for Canadian, while frequently appearing in supermarkets and ethnic restaurants. The latter locations indicate that the hosts have broken the barrier into a global community of consumerism and as such lose some of their Canadianess. 

The absence of hardened nationalism allows the hosts and guest stars to produce public sex, that is acts which  express sexuality. One of the hosts, Alex Perrault has become simply "MusclesGlasses" and the main host, Harley Morenstein affectionately refers to him as such. Inspired by fanfare, Morenstein engages in openly homosocial interaction, girded by undertones of homosexuality. He devalues the body in the same way as viewers, leaving him without a fully-expressed identity; MusclesGlasses is a condensed moniker summarizing Perrault's status as a masculine, accessorized body. There's also the wonderful ejaculatory imagery which seemingly appears in every episode: while making tacos, the men promise that the female tasters will sour cream; a later episode features ice cream. Morenstein's use of inflection is key to deploying his sexual commentary. 

Finally, there are the thinly-veiled acts of explicit homosexual sex. On a trip home to see his Dad, MusclesGlasses is fed taffy on a large stick by Morenstein who visibly enjoys feeding his the phallic object with its sweet nectar. Feeding each other food as symbolic of the blowjob has become a theme appearing in other episodes as well. Or, in "The Black Legend," the men make a giant crepe and find two girls to eat it in a play on girl-on-girl porn with Morenstein as the voyeur in the background, doing his best to appearing as if he is masturbating.

Kindly, the men want us to know that we can also be men like them with the sale of shirts that read "&Baconstrips&Baconstrips&Baconstrips," a phrase that is exalted in each non-dessert episode. The best we Americans can muster in retort to these virile Canadians: Vegan Meal Time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbBCWZue57M). The Swedes have concocted a whole series entitled "Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time" making such delicious treats as "Macho Salad," a title meant to outdo EMT's "Meat Salad."

Bon Appetit!

It Gets Better!

In 2005, Time magazine published a wonderful article entitled "The Battle Over Gay Teens" (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1112856,00.html). I found it illuminating at the time as I wandered in an ether of uncertainty, beginning to realize the tangibility of my sexuality, no longer a far-off abstraction that couldn't possibly apply to me.

Funny, perhaps tangential anecdote: the first day of sophomore year, I had Geometry class second period and my teacher was talking about planes. He said "the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plane" and then looked directly at me and said, "Hayden, do you know what movie that's from?" Being the culturally-literate person that I am, I didn't want to disappoint, but I really didn't know! Don't ask how I got to age 15 without seeing My Fair Lady, but it happened. (Truth is, I still haven't seen it, which I suppose, to someone, means I'm not really gay.) But I remember the sense of dread that I felt, not only because I didn't know the answer, but because knowing the answer might make me gay. The logic isn't there, but when you are on the verge of coming out, every gesture and action is scrutinized as something that might out you, something that might make you "too gay" and therefore unacceptable to others.

But I think there is a tendency to be self-congratulatory about sexuality. The article concluded that fewer gay children are growing up less traumatized than past generations. Truth. And who couldn't be happy about the recent legislative success in New York? Meanwhile, media depictions of the Westboro Baptist Church (whose politics I despise, so please don't mistake me) or really anything in Tennessee make people who espouse "anti-gay" views into Neanderthals. But even as queerness becomes more "mainstream" and gay people progressively gain rights, there is still plenty of internal suffering. The existence of a stronger, more visible community does not preclude the personal anguish that exists. The suicide of Tyler Clementi is the only necessary evidence.

But it gets better and not just because there's a super cool project that says so (http://www.itgetsbetter.org/). It gets better because we can laugh at silly stuff like not wanting to say something that might out you, like not wanting to wear something because it gives off the wrong perception. It gets better because you realize you can choose how out you want to be. It gets better because, while your sexuality might be the most complicated part of you, it's not the biggest part of you. Once realized, sexuality is subsumed by the whole. You are you.

We All Have Things to Learn

I went to the Portland Pride Festival today. It is my third year in attendance and, as usual, I was accompanied my one of my fruit-flies (female friends who are magnets for gay men). We watched a great parade, ended up holding the flag and marching when it seemed like there weren't enough people, and walked around procuring free stuff. I'm torn between my favorite freebie: the small condom case (condom included) that attaches to your key chain or the carabiner with a measuring tape inside.

A recent Facebook status by one of my friends reminded me that not everyone likes Pride. Indeed, I use to hate the idea of Pride. I thought that it gave people an excuse to act "super gay," that we don't need cordoned-off days or weeks to celebrate different groups (in fact, I still feel that the biggest flaw in celebrating certain demographics allows us to forget them the rest of the year), and that there was little substantive value in Pride. My friend believes that Pride diminishes (or does not celebrate) monogamous, long-term relationships, but rather glorifies partying and ultimately ends up having a negative effect on the perception of gay culture.

I might tend to agree with this perception if I hadn't seen so many gay couples and their children at Pride today. As for the people who are "super gay" (by that, I think he means drag queens and flamboyant individuals), the negative perception of them comes from people who don't understand them or don't want to understand them. For a long time, I didn't understand them. I also didn't understand people of ambiguous gender identity, queer identity (I didn't know anything outside of gay or lesbian until early in my college career), and the rampant discrimination against queer people that takes place on a daily basis. I was just a white kid from suburbia who had grown up going to Catholic school and church his whole life and only new that he gay and very little outside of that. But we're all learning, all the time and I am proud to say that by getting to know the diverse people who attend Pride, I have a better understanding of myself and one of the communities to which I belong.

Pride does some things really well and I want to talk about those:
It brings together people of different religions, races, genders, and socio-economic backgrounds. It reminds us we co-exist along queer people everyday; they work in grocery stores, banks, auto dealerships, hospitals, etc. We are reminded that our sexuality, the most complicated part of an individual, can exist in tandem with a "normal" or "average" person; it undercuts the idea of queerness as deviance. As much as Pride may be a salute to a counterculture, it also illustrates the way in which queerness has become integrated into our culture without assimilating.

Camille Paglia has observed that the rainbow flag with its strict geometric lines does not speak to the broad melange of people who identify as queer in some way. It's true. That is the one thing I would change about Pride; let all the colors blur and blend the way the people at Pride do.

Howl & Some Thoughts on the Writing Process

I just finished two films about writers: Howl (2010) and Sylvia (2003). The first features James Franco, Jon Hamm (of Mad Men fame), and David Strathairn (of Good Night and Good Luck). James Franco plays the famous Allen Ginsburg and the movie cuts between an interview, an obscenity trial (Ginsburg was not on trial, but his publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, another poet as well, was), Ginsburg reading his epic in a smoky bar, and animations drawn from the poem. The second features Gwyneth Paltrow as the tragic Sylvia Plath and Daniel Craig (of James Bond fame) as her unfaithful husband, Ted Hughes.

I enjoyed both films in their own way. Howl, I think, was a selfish film in that it seemed to be more about the artfulness of it all, and thus about James Franco's ability to make film. If I didn't know anything about Franco and his pursuit of MFAs and PhDs as well as his Museum of Non-Visible Art (don't ask), I probably wouldn't have been as irritated. But all I could think about through the entire film was how much was trying to be done: a portrayal of Ginsburg as the writer, a historic account of puritanical 50s America, and a feat of animation in which poetry literally becomes imagery. There was so much going on; the movie became a portfolio to Franco saying 'look at all the different things I can do, I'm an artist not just some one-dimensional man, some actor.' Perhaps most frustrating was Franco as Ginsburg hammering out line after line of "Howl" with ease at the typewriter, vomiting up lines thick with metaphor with ease. It simply is not how writers, even great ones like Ginsburg, write or wrote.

Sylvia, by contrast, nailed the writing process. We see both Plath and Hughes hunched over at their dimly lit desks at night, grabbing their hair in frustration, thesauruses thrown open, searching for the right word. Hughes might find some inspiration from his bike rides, but he doesn't compose great work unlike Franco's Ginsburg who, with what seems like a few short wandering around Brooklyn (though admittedly there is greater depth to the plot), wrote "Howl." Plath as well slaves away, slogging through the crap to get to the good stuff all while raising children. We can't help but be impressed by the accuracy of the writing process, appreciate how much Plath's and Hughes's struggle for great writing (and greatness) mirrors our own.

New Beginnings

When I created and began writing my first blog, it was about politics with a tendency toward American foreign policy. That was two years ago. I found myself becoming disenfranchised or simply disinterested with politics. I realized that I can like foreign policy without making it what defines me. Since then, it's been a gradual epiphany toward recognizing the value in loving art, history, literary studies, Native America(ns), poetry, anthropology, and generally whatever fancies me. A professor once told me that people who I believe in interdisciplinarity (mind you, I don't know if I am one of those people or I'm just doing what I want because it pleases me and I want to be a well-rounded individual) rarely ever touch the surface of anything or make any significant strides in modes of thinking. I'm not out to make this blog my rebuttal to her myopic statement; I want this newborn thing to be beautiful and for me as well as for other readers.


So here goes:
I'm reading an article by Louis Menand that appeared in The New Yorker last week (this week's issue is the summer fiction issue and it features a story by Lauren Groff who went to UDub-Madison with a friend of mine, Jacques Rancourt. I will link to both of them soon. Here's the link to Menand: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/06/06/110606crat_atlarge_menand) and he's talking about the value of college. He points to the higher income of people with a bachelor's degree: $83,000 versus someone with a high school education, who on average makes $31,000. Menand seems to be making a big leap from the "value" of education to income; though I don't doubt that a college education is beneficial (how can I?), I think I'd rather have little to no debt and make $30,000 than have a quarter of a million dollars (or more! the thought makes me nauseous) and make $80-85,000. Perhaps this is naivete, but the idea of debt makes me incredibly unhappy and I think I'd rather have to worry about living on/with less than worry about vast amounts of debt. It also bothers me than the inflationary status of higher education is normalizing the idea of debt, especially long-term debt. When 22% of awarded degrees are going to business students, the thought of debt seems to parallel the way we treat our environment and economy: it's okay to use up natural resources now, we'll figure it out later; it's okay to speculate on housing and the value of "derivatives" and other forms of non-existent money, we'll figure it out later; it's okay to spend piles of money on my undergraduate degree, I'll pay it back later, it will all work out. That philosophy of "we'll figure it out later" distresses me personally, but it correlates to the way we behave and suggests that we need to start changing the way we think about the "value" of things.