Amazon.com sent me a message this morning, announcing that the company is has "little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates" because of an "unconstitutional tax collection scheme" due to be passed by the North Carolina General Assembly. Not that I make any significant amount of money from my referrals to Amazon,… Continue reading Amazon.com ending Amazon Associates Program for North Carolina
Category: Literature
The Digital Humanities and Literary Scholarship
Here's the skeleton of a presentation I gave for our ENGL 701 grad students. This is a research methods class and I offered an overview of the ways that technology can either enhance or downright transform literary scholarship. Engl 701 (Spring 2009)View more presentations from samplereality.
CFP: Don DeLillo and Play
Here's a CFP for conference panel on Don DeLillo and Play that I'm organizing: CFP: Don DeLillo and Play Sponsored by the Don DeLillo Society 2009 American Literature Association Conference Boston, Massachusetts, May 21-24, 2009 The groundbreaking work of Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois suggests that play and games are a fundamental part of life,… Continue reading CFP: Don DeLillo and Play
Kunzru’s Transmission and Gaiman’s Coraline
I'm not sure why I started reading for pleasure two separate novels on the eve of the new semester, but I did. Maybe I'm trying to squeeze a few more drops of summer out of the first week of classes, before my reading for work grows too heavy. First up is Hari Kunzru's Transmission. The… Continue reading Kunzru’s Transmission and Gaiman’s Coraline
Graphic Novels Saved Me a Dime
Finally, my disjointed knowledge of graphic novels and science fiction paid off. Or at least saved me a dime. Summit Coffee, my local coffee shop, has a daily trivia question, which gets you a ten cent discount if you get it right. If it's local trivia or sports trivia, I'm a lost cause. But every… Continue reading Graphic Novels Saved Me a Dime
Torrents and Explosions We Now Take for Granted
Looking for something the wonderful German critic Walter Benjamin says in Illuminations about the cheapening of experience in a mass mediated world, I came across this haunting reflection that describes the world as my great-grandparents must have seen it, in the years after the horrific brutality of the Great War: A generation that had gone… Continue reading Torrents and Explosions We Now Take for Granted
So Many Universes in My Head
I've been wondering, how many universes can I hold in my head at once? I'm talking about fictional universes, of course. And by universe, I mean a world set apart by its own physics and cosmology. So, realist narratives all occupy the same universe (Sherlock Holmes and Tony Soprano exist in the same universe). But… Continue reading So Many Universes in My Head
Fantastic writing in reviews of milk on amazon
Via Dennis Jerz via Boing Boing, word of hundreds of fake reviews for a real product on Amazon, a gallon of Tuscan whole milk. Jerz imagines quite rightly that the novelty of ordering milk from an online bookstore is the impetus for these entertaining reviews, which range in style from poetic to surreal. Many of… Continue reading Fantastic writing in reviews of milk on amazon
Making Wikipedia a Class Assignment
Slashdot has a post today about a professor who requires students to edit Wikipedia for a class assignment. Come on, Slashdot, this is old, old news! My colleague Mills Kelly has had many Wikipedia assignment in the past several years, while over a year ago I had my 21st Century Literature Class do extensive edits… Continue reading Making Wikipedia a Class Assignment
The Futility of Rowing
I've never seen a more fitting description of a rowing machine than in Don DeLillo's Falling Man: There was no fitness center in his hotel. He found a gym not far away and worked out when there was time. No one used the rowing machine. He half hated the thing, it made him angry, but… Continue reading The Futility of Rowing
Art and Terror in the Arctic
It's a good thing that August had record temperatures---seemingly endless days over 100 degrees---because I spent a better part of the month reading Dan Simmons' leviathan of a novel The Terror, a semi-historical account of a failed bid in the 1840s to chart the legendary "northwest passage" through the frozen arctic. Simmons accomplishes much in… Continue reading Art and Terror in the Arctic
Oprah on The Road / The Road on Oprah
I'm a voracious reader and my personal and professional lives both revolve around books: I'm always either reading a book, teaching a book, or writing about a book. Sometimes all at the same time for three different books. In short order this spring I've read a string of novels, nonstop, usually starting the newest one… Continue reading Oprah on The Road / The Road on Oprah
Falling Down in Mother Goose
After another week of reading Mother Goose to my son, it's become obvious that he has a clear preference for a certain kind of nursery rhyme. Namely, one in which people (or in one case, an egg) fall down. And there's a lot of falling down in Mother Goose. We all know about Jack and… Continue reading Falling Down in Mother Goose
Death in Mother Goose
For Christmas, I gave my son a new edition of the classic The Real Mother Goose, with illustrations by Blanche Fisher Wright. First published in 1916, the book has been a perennial childhood favorite for almost a century. It certainly was one of mine. And so it was with nostalgia that I began reading "Little… Continue reading Death in Mother Goose
The Last Jihad
Okay, so today I venture halfheartedly to Starbucks, because it's the only coffee shop within walking distance (though there must be 8 billion within driving distance in Northern Virginia), and at the table across from me, there is some guy going on and on about how there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and… Continue reading The Last Jihad