Here is an early, tentative course description for my Fall 2011 senior seminar for the English Honors students. I welcome comments or reading recommendations! Post-Print Fiction (ENGL 400 Honors Seminar) For several centuries the novel has been associated with a single material form: the bound book, made of paper and printed with ink. But what… Continue reading Post-Print Fiction Course Description (for Fall 2011)
Category: Literature
Graphic Novels and Narratives for Spring 2011
I always find it difficult to select the texts for my graphic novel courses. Narrowing the choices for my Spring 2011 undergrad class bordered upon an existential crisis. Perhaps it's because so much seems to be at stake when you're likely introducing students for the first time in their lives to the critical study of… Continue reading Graphic Novels and Narratives for Spring 2011
Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2011 MLA
Revised: This is a comprehensive list of digital humanities sessions at the 2011 MLA in Los Angeles. Many of the speakers posted the text of their talks online, and you'll find links here to those online versions. If yours isn't linked yet, please reply in the comments with the URL of your presentation, and I'll… Continue reading Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2011 MLA
ENGL 685 (Graphic Novels) Reading List
I always agonize over which books to teach during any given semester. It's not for a lack of possibilities. Indeed, there are always too many choices, too many great books to teach in the fields of postmodern literature and experimental literature. And I always want to get the syllabus just right for my students, balancing… Continue reading ENGL 685 (Graphic Novels) Reading List
Gaiman and I
Neil Gaiman has done it again. He has stolen from me, again. I am talking wholesale robbery. Gaiman is a lie and a thief and an incubus that leeches upon my dreams, my unconscious, my fevered sleeping mind. Do I have to spell it out for you? Let's go all the way back to the… Continue reading Gaiman and I
A Tale of Two MLA Bibliographies
Last month I questioned the Modern Language Association's decision, handed down in the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook, to exclude URLs (i.e. web addresses) from bibliographies and Works Cited lists. My readers seemed to be divided, and Rosemary Feal, the Executive Director of the MLA, joined the conversation by outlining some of the reasons… Continue reading A Tale of Two MLA Bibliographies
The MLA in Tweets
I've learned from following several digital humanities conferences from afar the past year (including Digital Humanties 2009 and THATcamp 2009) that the Twitter archive of a conference back-channel can be unreliable. Twitter's default search stream for any hashtag is extremely ephemeral, and that impermanence poses a problem for conference participants and observers, as well as… Continue reading The MLA in Tweets
Tips for the Modern Language Association
In the spirit of my fake advice for National Novel Writing Month, last month I began posting "tips" on Twitter for the upcoming Modern Language Association conference, an annual exercise in masochism for literature professors and graduate students the world over. This year's conference was held in Philadelphia, from December 27 to December 30, and… Continue reading Tips for the Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association Wishes Away Digital Différance
This is the first academic semester in which students have been using the revised 7th edition of the MLA Handbook (you know, that painfully organized book that prescribes the proper citation method for material like "an article in a microform collection of articles"). From the moment I got my copy of the handbook in May… Continue reading The Modern Language Association Wishes Away Digital Différance
National Novel Writing Month Tips
November has been decreed National Novel Writing Month by some wise guy in California. The idea is that you have 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel. A noble endeavor to be sure, but one that seems doomed to not succeed on any satisfying level. I imagine it's like running a marathon, but without… Continue reading National Novel Writing Month Tips
A History of Choose Your Own Adventure Visualizations
Every six months or so it seems as if the entire Internet discovers for the first time that people are making data visualizations of the Choose Your Own Adventure books that were popular in the early eighties. Computer scientist Christian Swinehart's stunning visualizations are only the most recent to capture the imagination of scores of… Continue reading A History of Choose Your Own Adventure Visualizations
Updates on David Foster Wallace review by Jay Murray Siskind
A few weeks ago I was interviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education for a story about the fake David Foster Wallace review in Modernism/Modernity. The Chronicle story is online and at least for the first week, not behind a paywall. I was in Spain at the time, so for the interview I had to… Continue reading Updates on David Foster Wallace review by Jay Murray Siskind
Electronic Literature is a Foreign Land
One of the more brilliant works of electronic literature I savor teaching is Brian Kim Stefan's Star Wars, One Letter at a Time, which is exactly what it sounds like. Aside what's going on in the piece itself (which deserves its own separate blog post), what I enjoy is the almost violent reaction it provokes… Continue reading Electronic Literature is a Foreign Land
The truth behind Jay Murray Siskind’s review of David Foster Wallace
And finally, the wink and nod I've been looking for. Laurence Rainey, the editor of Modernism/Modernity, and Nicole Devarenne, the former managing editor of Modernism/Modernity, sent me this open letter today: An Open Letter to Mark Sample, We appreciate your recent remarks concerning a review essay about David Foster Wallace, one that appeared in late… Continue reading The truth behind Jay Murray Siskind’s review of David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, and the Littlest Literary Hoax
Jay Murray Siskind is Don DeLillo's only recurring character, having first appeared in DeLillo's pseudonymous Amazons and later as a kind of Mephistopheles character in White Noise. Now, Siskind has broken out of the realm of fiction and entered the real world. I am referring to "An Undeniably Controversial and Perhaps Even Repulsive Talent," a… Continue reading David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, and the Littlest Literary Hoax