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We're experiencing our third winter storm of the year — with sleet mostly, but also a little snow. The sleet verges on freezing rain. What happens at Missouri University of Science & Technology when we have icy, slushy streets and sidewalks, with more sleet falling as I type?

Many faculty and some students live where it's dangerous or impossible to drive to campus. Walking, too, is hazardous when everything is coated with ice. It's fairly quiet in the department this morning, although I've seen four faculty members, and talked with three or four students. The department's administrative assistant, Linda Sands, lives several miles out in the country amid hills that, when the roady is iced over, make driving very hazardous. She's not here today.

The quiet and relatively few people are somewhat disconcerting. It's almost lonely.

I drove to campus, as I usually do, although I live within a 15 minute walk. I have walked to campus in worse weather than this, but . . . perhaps I have more (or less) sense.

Continue reading "Education in Winter" »

Posted by Gene Doty at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently, my wife and I watched again Peter Jackson's films of The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien's masterwork. Now, we are watching the films with the director's, producers', and writers' commentaries. The question that immediately arises when one watches a movie based on a book that one loves is whether the movie does the novel justice. Does the movie tell the same story as the novel?

We have enjoyed the story of The Lord of the Rings in three media: Tolkien's novel, Jackson's film, and the BBC's radio production. I have read, viewed, and listened to each of these many times. Is the story the same in each medium?

The answer is "No," if by "the same," one means that the movie and the novel are identical in each detail. Given the differences between a film and a book, it is impossible that the two be identical.

The answer is "Yes," if by the "the same," one means that the movie and the novel tell the "same story," however different the two may be in detail. For The Lord of the Rings, my judgment is that Peter Jackson does tell the same story as does Tolkien. For that matter, the BBC's radio production also tells the same story.

Consider this possibility: the "real" Story lies behind any particular telling of the story in any medium. While we can consider Tolkien's novel to be the canonical (authoritative) version of the Story of the destruction of the One Ring, the other versions can still tell the Story, although different in detail from the canonical version.

The BBC radio production is very close textually to the novel. (Ian Holm plays Frodo in this version, and, of course, he plays Bilbo in Jackson's films.) But the radio version omits the Old Forest, Bombadil, and the Barrow Downs just as does Jackson's film. Like most readers of the novel, my wife and I both delight in Tom Bombadil and Goldberry; yet I understand why someone telling the Story in a different medium would omit them.)

An analogy for the relationship of Jackson's films to the novel: we can see the films (and the radio production) as remixes of the novel, just as musicians remix songs and albums. Actually, musicians may release a song in versions of different lengths; in such a case, do we ask which version is the "real" song? Really, we decide which version we prefer. Realistically, isn't that what people do with novels and movies based on them?

Here's a last question, which I only mention: how much can a version (or remix) of a story change it without making it a different story? It's a question that I and the students of a course in the fantastic in literature and film discussed without arriving at any kind of definite answer. The answer is surely up to the individual.

Posted by Gene Doty at 07:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Thanksgiving break started officially this weekend, a landmark eagerly awaited. For some it started earlier, sometime last week. Friday, the campus population was down quite a bit -- the boisterous voices, the standing, sitting, slouched students crowded in the hall, waiting for class . . .

Yesterday morning (Saturday), I walked downtown to get my hair cut, prepared to go for a coffee if the barbershop were full. It wasn't. Very few cars were parked along Pine Street; there were hardly any pedestrians. A cool sunny November morning and nobody around. Several thousand students gone, the town grows quiet. Of course, faculty leave as well as students. I'm one of those grinds who doesn't leave but sticks around to try to catch up.

The title of this entry, "Taking a Break," might refer to the fact it's been three weeks since I posted here. I hadn't realized so much time had passed -- not a deliberate break, either, just busyness and distraction.

Whatever you do over this week, I hope it's fun and relaxing.

Posted by Gene Doty at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's a quick read, although I had to do it in numerous short sessions — 10 minutes, 15, maybe 20 wedged between other, more necessary things.

Summer school is finishing up; the fall semester doesn't start for a little over two weeks; the halls are pretty empty. So I'm going to reflect a little on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (HPDH). Thee's a mild SPOILER, so you may want to stop here. PDH is the last of a series of seven novels. (A series of seven novels must be a septology.) Seven, as you know, is one of the main symbolic numbers. More devoted Potter scholars than I can figure out the significance of that.

Human stories make up a tree or a sea, depending on your preference in metaphors. I've modelled the title of this post on the title of Salman Rushdie's novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. J. K. Rowling has drawn heavily on the human heritage of story for these books. My response to the first book, like that of other readers, was that she hadn't done much more than pull imagery and themes from a variety of stories, not all of them really compatible. Rowling's skill with plot and appealing characters carried me past that response.

In book seven, Rowling goes deeper than the folk story motifs of giants and witches and enchanted objects, deeper than the "school story" genre into which HPDH fits. In some of the scenes, she reaches mythopoeic, archetypal depths — the depths at which our deepest fears, anxieties, and joys are rooted. The scene in which Harry and Ron retrieve the Sword of Gryffendor from a frozen pond, having been lead there by a phantasmal doe — that scene is worthy of stories as ancient as The Mahabharata, The Odyssey, or Gilgamesh. Spenser's Red Cross Knight could've made that recovery. (The link to the Knight opens a PDF file of Book III of The Faerie Queene.

HPDH doesn't sustain that level of mythic intensity throughout, but there are enough instances to give the story strength and depth.

Posted by Gene Doty at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm still committed to posting two entries a week, at about noon on Wednesday and Sunday. (I may go to one a week when the fall semester starts.) Eating lunch, I realized I didn't have an entry ready for today, and no topic sprang to mind easily; so, here's a brief comment on a topic that lots of us think about.

How does the hardy web-surfer know which site is reliable and which is pure hokum? There's problem a spectrum from completely reliable to utter hokum, but how does one know where a particular web page lies on the spectrum?

I'm not sure I can answer my own question, so if you have ideas about reliable web sites or techniques that can help rate them, please share them in a comment. I promise to post comments that address the issue without flaming or obnoxious language.

I used "Wikipedia" in the title for this post because that's the site many first think of. I was visiting a freshman composition class that was discussing research. When the teacher asked where students would look for information, the first thing several said was "Wikipedia." I use Wikipedia myself; I've found it a useful source of information I want students to have. But when I use it that way, I know something about the topic and (hope) I would recognize hokum.

What if you don't know anything about a topic you need to research? Consult several sources — even printed books and journals. Talk to someone who is knowledgeable. It takes some effort to learn something.

But suppose I hear a story on the news that piques my interest; I don't want to do a lot of research to discover whether the assertion I heard is reliable or hokum. As the presidential campaign season begins, there are a number of questionable statements. How can I sort them out? Does anyone have an idea?

Posted by Gene Doty at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Those who've known me for awhile may be surprised that I'm department chair. I'm as surprised as anyone. I said more than once that I never wanted to be chair. But now I am and have been for 18 months.

How am I finding it? Different than I had thought. Not as hard in some ways, harder in others. Truth to tell, I find rewards and satisfactions as chair. (Frustrations and perplexities too, of course.) I have learned a lot of how things work: things like managing the budget, scheduling courses, working with development, hiring faculty, recruiting students, and much else. Many of those procedures are changing under the new system, which takes effect today, 1 July 2007.

But this entry is not about the daily details of managing the department or the new organization of the campus. It is about some basic lessons I'm learning as chair.

Here's a brief list of some important lessons. Most people probably already know them. I would've acknowledged them back in the pre-chair past. They are much different from my current perspective.

1. It's never done. I'll never finish everything. I may complete—I'd better!—this task or that, but there will always be more to do, an indefinite queue of "doables." When I am chair no longer, there will still be things undone. Can't be avoided.

   Knowing that everything will never be done—that I can never sit back at 4:30 and say, "Nothing else to do; see what comes in tomorrow," that knowledge is a relief. I can do what is immediate, then what is intermediate, and then, maybe, the distant. I'll always have something to do tomorrow.



2. I'm not alone. It's heartening to find that I'm not the only chair who feels he/she doesn't know everything and seeks to find the right procedure and the right information. My fellow chairs are more knowledgeable and competent than I, and I learn from them. I also find their uncertainties reassuring in the face of my own. If I don't know everything, that's okay.

And? I'm finding that I can do the job and find satisfaction in it. The department I chair is a good department: talented teachers, productive researchers, involved students. I can't take credit for their achievements, but I can help them achieve.

Posted by Gene Doty at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On June 2, Phelps County celebrated its sesquicentennial—its 150th anniversary. Among the celebratory events was a group of Civil War reenactors portraying Union troops from St. Louis. They camped next to the original county courthouse, as Union troops camped here in the 1860s, using the courthouse for a hospital among other things.

How is this event connected with the University and with the Department of English and Technical Communication? The university is located in Phelps County; the department teaches literature of the Civil War period. As an example, here is the first stanza from a poem in Walt Whitman's Drum Taps:

"A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,
"As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,
"As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent,
"Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying,
"Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,
"Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all."

Posted by Gene Doty at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)