The Times asks if Americans are becoming news-obsessed as we are in the middle of a very exciting election season as well as stuck in a hot economic mess. They begin with a story of a film production accountant with the last name "Lehman" (coincidence? please....) whose MSNBC-watching habits have gone so far as to elicit a pretty hilarious behavioral tick from her  5 year-old son Beckett.

YANA COLLINS LEHMAN, a film production accountant who lives in Brooklyn, knew something was amiss when her 5-year-old son, Beckett, started to announce to no one in particular, “I’m John McCain, and I approved this statement.”

Ms. Collins Lehman, 36, thought: “Oh my God, I’m watching too much news.”

But it is hard not to, she said, with the financial markets in meltdown, and that crisis increasingly intertwined with a frenzied presidential campaign entering the homestretch. This is why her own news diet has spiked to where it feels as if it’s taking over her life. And maybe her son’s, too.

“It’s such a drain on productivity,” Ms. Collins Lehman said. “It’s a compulsion.”

And of course the NY Times looks to a sociologist to ask about news-compulsion.

ERIC KLINENBERG, a sociology professor at New York University, said people are unusually transfixed by news of the day because the economic crisis in particular seems to reach into every corner of their lives. Usually, he added, people can compartmentalize their lives into different spheres of activity, such as work, family and leisure. But now, “those spheres are collapsing into each other.”

I do not buy Klinenberg's veiled economism but I do see where his view stems from. More philosophically, we would consider his statement about the ability to rationalize and compartmentalize social phenomena parallel to what existential philosophers call "ontological security." In other words, everything is in its right place. Or as the phrase goes, "everything is everything." But as of late, during periods of crisis or social transformation, as the classical sociologist Durkheim believed, we experience a spike in "anomie" or normelessness. Or, as the great George Constanza put it: "Worlds are COLLIDING!!!!!"(Warning: The link is actually in Spanish overdub, which I find to be extra-hilarious.)

But beyond the existential argument, I find another area that the Times reports on to be far more interesting, that of what Pierre Bourdieu called "cultural capital."

For others, information serves as social currency. Crises, like soap operas or sports teams, can provide a serial drama for people to talk about and bond over, said Kenneth J. Gergen, a senior research psychologist at Swarthmore College who studies technology and culture. “It gives us the stuff that keeps the community together,” he said. And for those whose social circles think of knowledge as power, having the latest information can also enhance status, Dr. Gergen said. “If you can just say what somebody said yesterday, that doesn’t do the trick,” he said.

This is something you and I have all experienced, which is the necessity of "one-up-manship" that occurs at all social gatherings especially in situation in which the person who does not know how to explain a derivative and its importance in the current global financial meltdown is looked upon as lacing social currency, in other words, culturally poor. It is most likely the case that we modulate between the one who is disdained and the one who disdains.

However, I find the tragic human alienation narrative that the Times story paints is not only a bit "precious" but also empirically iffy in one sense. Information can become a compulsion but it can also, and is in many places in the world, a hard-to-find commodity. And in many ways, I think information-in-use, that is not the concept of information but information as it is used socially and other wise, exists as something that is ready-at-hand, not something is overloading humans' ability to use it. What I mean to say is that the Times report lacks an understanding of information distribution. It assumes that because all of this information exists in our technomediated worlds, that it is used by everyone at once. It is quite clear that people do not use one media at a time; I, along with most of you all, watch TV regularly with laptop close by. Nevertheless, information, especially news, must be accessed through iPhone, TV sets, and computers. It does not land on the doorstop of your consciousness with the help of a news stork. All of this to say, the Times paints the portrait of the overfed individual who obsessively watches the news and goes to Huffington Post by him or herself. This is a very old story from the 1950s in which the individual loses his or her individuality through the colonization of his or her mind by technology (See various books by Riesman, Lasch, Adorno and Horkheimer, Jacques Ellul, and more recently Neil Postman). But this is not exactly an accurate picture of the conditions under which information is distributed--sent out and received.

How many times have you sat around the TV with roommates, friends, significant others and had a burning question which was quite easily answered by someone grabbing the computer or whipping out (pause..haha, had to do it.) their iPhone?

X-posted at Human Potential.

I somewhat regret that my writing here has been undefined by a particular topic or genre.  I have wondered if readership wouldn't dramatically increase with a more focused range of topics.  I blog for a local nonprofit as well and topic-driven content has worked well.  I just couldn't give up the freedom to write about all my crazy ideas in one place.

I'm applying to graduate school these days and I'm somewhat pleased that I am still "Moving Out."  I have enjoyed working for a year and will have two years of "real" experience to my credit if and when I enter graduate school.  Maybe then I can blog on my chosen field (journalism/ethnomusicology - yes, you can do both).  I took a forced break from studying music after graduation and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  I met a lot of practical people who explained to me all the reasons academia can be impractical and overly-exclusive.  I thought long and hard about not returning to school.  I blogged about a lot of trivial things and maybe a few important ones.

I can't say I'm overwhelmingly proud of my blog here.  It seems kind of random and kind of boring at times.  I enjoy writing, however, so I can't say it wasn't worth it.  I just regret that I didn't make it more focused and witty.  A blog full of smart-sounding, intellectual articles would be a nice addition to my grad school applications, as shallow as that seems.

In any case, I'm still here in Ohio, somehow still constantly moving despite having graduated over a year ago.  In the last five years, I've lived in two dorms and four apartments in the U.S., Mexico, and Spain.  I was even denied for a credit card because I had so many different addresses on my credit report.  (Being under 21 didn't help either.)

I'm feeling apprehensive about this next move, mainly for financial reasons.  The sheer cost of applying to graduate school is enough to deter many low-income people, I would think.  Enough coworkers and businesspeople have expressed disdain about graduate degrees to make me think twice.  Yet, here I am, editing my resume and thinking about references.  I have a glimmering hope of a great financial aid/scholarship/assistantship offer and great excitement about a new level of study.  As always, we'll see.

,

One more thing. I did hear from a senior professor who has held posts at two of America’s top universities that a student who has applied, is turned down, and then applies again the next year does indeed have a strike–or two–against him or her. He didn’t presume to speak for every school everywhere, of course, but he did seem to think this was the way it was commonly done, and he is very widely connected.

Wait, what? It's counted against you if you reapply to a program that turned you down last year? My entire application strategy was based upon applying to the top tier programs first (all programs that I would say "yes" to without regret) along with some ThM (or equivalent) programs. If I got universally rejected at the PhD level, I'd do a ThM (or equivalent) somewhere and do a second round of applications the next year (with which I would widen the net to "second tier" schools). In the end, I did have two advanced one-year masters programs to choose from, but I am so happy that I got into UCLA as it is really the perfect program for my interests in New Testament social history.

John Stackhouse's well-connected friend shares information that goes against what I thought to be true. If I had been universally rejected at the PhD level, I would be doing another master's program right now and panicking a bit. I'm not sure I understand why a school would make it harder for a re-applicant the second time around, unless that applicant had done nothing to improve or had somehow gone backwards. In response to my amazement and confusion, Prof. Stackhouse commented:

I understand your confusion and, perhaps, dubiety, Brother McCullough. I strongly supported one of our graduates who was in precisely this case and whose case elicited this response from my friend. I only pass it along as something my friend sees as common in elite schools: If you’ve been considered and turned down once, you face a steeper hill the next time. It doesn’t make sense to me either, but there it is.

Something to consider very seriously for those who are applying!

Forget the complicated statistical models offered by our colleagues Faletta and Taylor.  Instead, The Zone Blitz Blog notes that Week 9 of the NFL season will decide the election:

Circle it on the calendar: Week 9's Monday Night Football matchup of the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Washington Redskins. The date is Nov. 3, 2008. That's one day before the Presidential election. Late that night is when the election will be determined. Not 24 hours later when NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and CNN project Barack Obama or John McCain the winner. Nov. 3, 2008, is the Presidential election version of Groundhog Day, only it comes every four years and we are somewhat confident that there is no evidence to show that a groundhog is used in any manner to determine the results.

Since 1940, the Washington Redskins have determined who won the presidency. Well, except one time, and that was 2004 when George W. Bush beat John Kerry. Of course, maybe there should be a recount in Ohio afterall. Anyway, the Redskins' final home game before the election is the one that determines the White House. If the Redskins win, the incumbent party wins the election. If the Redskins lose, the party out of power wins the White House. Fairly simple. And this leads us to the Pittsburgh Steelers at Washington, Nov 3, 2008.

Now remember, Redskins win, party in power wins; Redskins lose, party in power loses.   
• 2004: Redskins lose to Green Bay Packers 24-10. President George W. Bush beats Mass. Senator John Kerry. STREAK ENDS.
• 2000: Redskins lose to Tennessee Titans 27-21. VP Al Gore (incumbent party) loses to George W. Bush.
• 1996: Redskins beat Indianapolis Colts 31-16. President Bill Clinton (incumbent party) beats Kansas Senator Bob Dole.
• 1992: Redskins lose to New York Giants 24-7. President George H.W. Bush (incumbent party) loses to Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton
• 1988: Redskins beat New Orleans Saints 27-24. VP George H.W. Bush (incumbent party) beat Mass. Governor Michael Dukakis.
• 1984: Redskins beat Atlanta Falcons 27-14. President Ronald Reagan (incumbent party) beats former VP Walter Mondale.
• 1980: Redskins lose to Minnesota Vikings 39-14. President Jimmy Carter (incumbent party) loses to California Governor Ronald Reagan.
• 1976: Redskins lose to Dallas Cowboys 20-7. President Gerald Ford (incumbent party) loses to Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.
• 1972: Redskins beat Dallas Cowboys 24-20. President Richard Nixon (incumbent party) beats South Dakota Senator George McGovern.
• 1968: Redskins lose to New York Giants 13-10. Senator Hubert Humphrey (incumbent party) loses to California Governor Richard Nixon.
• 1964: Redskins beat Chicago Bears 27-20. President Lyndon Johnson (incumbent party) beats Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.
• 1960: Redskins lose to Cleveland Browns 31-10. VP Richard Nixon (incumbent party) loses to Mass. Senator John F. Kennedy.
• 1956: Redskins beat Cleveland Browns 20-9. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (incumbent party) beats former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson.
• 1952: Redskins lose to Pittsburgh Steelers 24-23. Illinois Governor Adlai (incumbent party) loses to General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
• 1948: Redskins beat Boston Yanks 59-21. President Harry S. Truman (incumbent party) beats New York Governor Thomas Dewey.
• 1944: Redskins beat Cleveland Rams 14-10. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (incumbent party) beats New York Governor Thomas Dewey.
• 1940: Redskins beat Pittsburgh Pirates 37-10. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (incumbent party) beats Wendell Willkie.

What does all this mean?  While it's thoroughly serendipitous, it does give one pause to note that it does better than a number of complex election prediction models...

Since August, Gallup has presented its tracking polls broken down by voter subgroups. With two months of data collected, some interesting trends have emerged. One of the most troubling for the McCain campaign is the shift among seniors. McCain supporters had hoped that older voters would offset his deficit among the under-30 crowd. Not only were elderly Americans more supportive of him, but they historically turn out in higher proportions.

It’s within the 65-plus crowd where the most significant movement occurs since August. McCain support among seniors slips from +8 to -1.  The net shift of nine points among seniors is the biggest move among any subgroup, meaning seniors account for a major part of McCain’s slump in the overall numbers -- likely due, in large part, to the current economic chaos.

The mother replied, "I don't know! Who are you?"

The little boy said excitedly, "WOW! My teacher was right. She said that I was so dirty that even my own mother wouldn't recognize me."

A reminder that this weekly post/thread will always be about our favorite teams… 

So how did our teams do?  Well... The big one was this week -- The Red River Rivalry Shootout.  Texas upends Oklahoma and makes a case for #1.

• Texas 45 Oklahoma 35 -- Longhorns win a classic game in the 4th Quarter. 
• Toledo 13 Michigan 10  — It's going to be a loooooong season for the Wolverines.
• Oklahoma State 28 Missouri 23 — Not Chase Daniels' best night...
• Penn State 48 Wisconsin 7 -- The Nittany Lions also make a case for #1.
• North Carolina 29 Notre Dame 24 -- Weird loss by the Irish in Chapel Hill.
• Michigan State 37 Northwestern 20  -- Wildcats get spanked by the Spartans.
• Houston 45 UAB 20 -- Coogs spot the Blazers 20 and then roll to a win.

"The Shab-al-Hiri Roach is a dark comedy of manners, lampooning academia and asking players to answer a difficult question - are you willing to swallow a soul-eating telepathic insect bent on destroying human civilization?

No?

Even if it will get you tenure?"

From a review at RPGnet:

In the Shab al-Hiri Roach, you play professors desperately seeking to advance their own reputation on campus, preferably by showing up their colleagues. Complicating this, an ancient telepathic species of roach has been released on campus and is now seeking out slaves to rebuild its long-dead empire. While you can always invite the roach to enslave your mind, it sometimes takes up residence there uninvited."

Alas, the most likely place that I'll find a bunch of academics willing to try this is at the next entomology meeting--and something tells me that many of them won't admit to participating in role-playing games.  :)

One of the formative debates within media studies concerns the social implications of realism as a style of representation. Encapsulated by Colin McCabe vs. Colin McArthur in the late 1970s, this debate asks whether realism can effectively provide a site of social critique—to radically oversimplify, McArthur claims realist texts can highlight bleak social conditions to inspire political action in viewers, while McCabe contends that conventional modes of realism encourage passivity and romanticize social conditions, calling for a more Brechtian style of emotional distanciation and critique.

The history of American television sees far more works embracing a McCabian mode of anti-realist critique than McArthurite realist exposé. The dominant strain in American televisual social critique is satirical, commenting on social ills by poking fun more than holding up a mirror—Norman Lear’s 1970s comedies were excessive in their style and tone, a model followed later by cartoony comedies, both animated like The Simpsons and South Park and live-action like Married… With Children and Malcolm in the Middle. Realist programs have more commonly been either apolitical (although McCabe would deny the existence of such a category), or explicitly supportive of the status-quo, as with the model of Dragnet and its many police procedural progeny, culminating in the temporally authentic 24, which now appears to dictate American foreign relations rather than represent them. Even Hill Street Blues, whose gritty realism is often remembered as exposing hidden facets of society, used excess and satire for its most biting critiques, as in the hyper-militaristic Sgt. Howard Hunter or violence-prone dirtbag Mick Belker.

On its face, The Wire stands as exception to this trend in American television, offering a realist exposé of urban America akin to the fiction of Zola, Dickens, and Upton Sinclair, and built upon the journalistic tradition of David Simon’s own ancestral newspapermen. Certainly much of the show’s power comes from this realist glare, presenting institutions like urban schools, city hall, and the police precinct with an eye and ear for details that imbue authenticity and make viewers feel as if they truly know what life is like in Baltimore. However, The Wire has always seasoned its main dish of gritty realism with the garnish of satirical humor. Often it is the gallows humor of the condemned laughing to keep from sobbing, as in the misadventures of Carter and Herc pursuing Fuzzy Dunlop, or the baroque profanity of McNulty and Bunk dissecting a crime scene.

But satire plays a starring role in seasons 3 and 5 in ways that seem to run counter to The Wire’s commitment to journalistic authenticity and social realism. The third season, with its theme of reform, presents three outlandish attempts to create a new day: a cop decriminalizing drugs, a gangster corporatizing the drug trade, and a reformist white politician striving to win election in a black city against a corrupt political machine. None of these plots belong within the social realist milieu (despite the improbable real life victory of Martin O’Malley), as they are as far-fetched and excessive as the scenarios featured on The Simpsons or All in the Family. But as far as I can tell, viewers accepted these storylines, and many even embraced moments like Stringer’s enforcement of Robert’s Rules and Bunny’s paper bag speech as among the program’s finest hours. There was no outcry that this satirical excess undercut the show’s core realism, even though these were clearly writerly inventions designed to portray the limits of what cannot be even contemplated within the political realities of corrupt institutions.

Season five was another story, however, as McNulty’s fake serial killer scheme raised the satire to Strangelovian proportions. And while diehard Wire-heads still embraced the final season, there was widespread discontent with this storyline and the dark place it took many beloved characters. I believe that the tepid reaction to season 5 is due in large part to the disjunction between the modes of social realism and excessive satire, as the serial killer plot escalated the absurdities that typically bubbled beneath the surface of the show’s dysfunctional systems. Viewers were willing to accept season three’s satire in large part because the plots were motivated by noble intentions, reducing violence by making the drug trade more regulated and businesslike. McNulty’s plot is much more driven by the extremities of a broken man than a noble reformer, as his desperation to beat the game pushes him to game the system. Thus the excesses are not motivated by the goals we share with characters as in season 3, but instead the demons we thought McNulty had purged in season 4—we see the scheme as more absurd and extreme because it comes from a much darker and dehumanized place.

The excessive and satirical mode of season 5 enabled an additional narrative dimension, allowing the writers to address the show itself on a meta-level—many of the newspaper’s discussions about the role of reporting, the attempts to capture “the Dickensian aspect” of Baltimore, and the debate over which stories get covered all offer commentaries about The Wire itself in relation to other television programs. It’s almost as if David Simon was offering an outlandish serial killer plot as a dare to Emmy voters (and their diegetic stand-ins, the Pulitzers): “if you won’t reward our commitment to realism, how about this load of crap more typical of network crime dramas?” And since the entire plot of the serial killer and its journalistic coverage revolves on the process of creating fiction and selling it as reality, the season meditates on the show’s own role of truth-telling fiction. Mixing these differing rhetorical modes within the same show suggests a fusion of the two Colins’ arguments, using both realism and anti-realism to craft a perfect epilogue to one of television’s masterworks, a social critique that transcends simple categorization and analysis.

• Es relevante para la PRÓXIMA generación
• Enseña a la ACTUAL generación que lo necesita para el siglo XXI
• Les enseña a suscribirse a la biblioteca
• Ahorra tiempo
• Usuarios quieren participar
• Nos convierte en líderes de la comunidad

The Future is Not Out of Reach: Trends, Transformations and Accessibility

[slideshare id=631538&doc=spain2008-1222951496152317-9&w=425]

12.10.08

I.

Irwin: Me pregunto como les estará yendo

Ms. Lintott: ¿nunca le dan ganas de regresar?

Irwin: ¿A Oxford?

         No soy suficientemente inteligente.

         No soy suficientemente nada, de hecho.

II.

Héctor: Los mejores momentos de la lectura son cuando encuentras algo, un pensamiento, un sentimiento, un punto de vista que habías creído que era especial o particularmente tuyo. Y helo aquí escrito por otra persona por alguien que no conoces. Quizá por alguien que murió hace mucho tiempo. Es como si una mano hubiera salido para tomar la tuya.

III.

Irwin: ¿alguna vez lo ha hecho infeliz algún alumno?

Héctor: Solían hacerlo. Tómelo mas bien como una inoculación (vacuna).  Es doloroso por poco tiempo pero proporciona inmunidad por el tiempo que sea necesario. Dado lo esporádica vacuna de refuerzo, otro rostro, otro recordatorio del dolor puede durarle la mitad de su vida.

Irwin: ¿Amor?

Héctor: ¿Quién podría amarme? Hablo demasiado.

Irwin: ¿lo saben ellos?

Héctor: Ellos lo saben…todo.

           No lo toque. Lo consideraría un tonto. Así me consideran a mi.

Todos profesores en ‘the hsitory boys’

IV. Mañana empiezo de nuevo en la academia. Demasiadas personas en la cabeza. Demasiadas cosas también. No se por donde van a salir. Si poco a poco. O Estallaran. Veremos

Me cuesta tanto olvidarte_ Mecano

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -- Mark Twain

Jacques Barzun, the last Renaissance Man alive, believes pedantry and pretentiousness must be driven out of the republic of letters. Today, after all, we confuse instruction with education-- anyone with a diploma is said to have been given an education. Cultivation of the self is no longer our goal; culture is delegated to specialists who write for each other. Most experts now imagine culture as an ocean of fragments; many treat culture as any chunk of social reality we happen to like or dislike.

Not only that. During the 1900s, the humanities became abstracted into sets of problems. In the arts, for example, bored specialists who needed to publish or perish constantly searched for super-secret hidden layers of meaning and symbolism. Such research isn't worthy of the name; it is constructive, not analytic, for it imposes ridiculous conceptions upon works that their creators never entertained. Every human concern is reduced to labels and rules; the humanities are obliterated into shoptalk. We've lost the forest *and* the trees. As Barzun reflected,

"Great works of art are great by virtue of being syntheses of the world; they qualify as art by fusing form and contents into an indivisible whole; what they offer is not "discourse about," nor a cipher to be decoded, but a prolonged incitement to finesse."

Twenty years later, with the development of the internet, Barzun's gravity feels out of place, for no one takes the university outside of the sciences seriously. One cannot respect what does not command respect. Angry, uncultivated misfits of low intelligence such as Juan Cole and Ward Churchill symbolize the grand freak show the university has become; if anyone obtains a degree in the humanities today, it is merely for the piece of paper, and everyone knows it. Degrees in history, or philosophy, or literature, aren't treated by most citizens as more than studies in comic books, or perhaps Kung Fu movies. Nor should they.

Barzun asserted that art and culture do not belong in a university, in the sense that the university is not their natural home. Great art is meant to be fun. The words amateur and dilettante, which have been turned into words of contempt, in their original sense meant "lover" and "seeker of delight." Before 1850, after all, there weren't any subjects and courses to instruct a lover of the arts. Few even believed the arts should be studied in the spirit of the sciences. Rather than methods and theories, the arts presuppose what Pascal called esprit de finesse, an intuitive understanding that seizes upon the character of its object as a whole.

History, like the arts, has also deteriorated. Barzun believed what passes as modern history can best be described as retrospective sociology-- it is a heap of details disregarding chronology and narrative continuity. Like modernist fiction, modernist history contains states of mind, strange detail, and analytic depth. Theory, generality, and abstraction have replaced the concrete imagination; much historical work has no memorable pattern. To get an idea, Barzun supplied a cluster of actual titles including Murdering Mothers: Infanticide in England and New England 1558-1803; Poverty and Welfare in Habsburg Spain; American Collegiate Populations; Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in 17th Century England; Fluctuations in the Prosperity of a Cloth-Making Town in Languedoc 1633-1789; A Prison of Expectations: The Family in Victorian Culture; White Racism: A Psychohistory. Supposedly this research, by sampling several isolated cases as a basis to deduce sweeping conclusions, satisfies democratic feelings by theoretically bringing us close to the people. None of it is worth reading as history.

A history, Barzun argued, is a piece of writing meant to be read. History, by showing the heroic side in man side by side with the vile, exercises our imagination and furnishes it. A good history shows the movers and shakers because if we delete them, the story is missing from the history. Too often an enterprising historian will try to make a name for himself by imposing an original idea upon events, a single cause. However, the presence or absence of particular individuals, along with sheer contingencies, both make a difference to the outcome of events; Barzun warned us not to miss the motive power nor the accidents interwoven in the passage of time. History is a product of acts of intelligence, will, and self-interest; things like the Colt revolver and barbed wire simply do not appear out of the ether.

History extends our experience by building an intuition of what is likely and what is important. After all, the humanities ultimately are formative, not informative; they organize our minds and make us attentive to the world. Relativist in the true sense of the word, the humanities link and relate the human soul to the rest of existence. The humanities broaden our horizons by giving us a taste of the philosophic atmosphere and historical perspective. As William James roughly described it, a liberal education allows us to know a good man when we see him; it is not only important for man to have skill, but to be a judge of skill, particularly of other men.

Woo hoo!!!  Hook 'em Horns!!  To our fellow PoliSci Sooner faculty:  45-35. Heheheheheheheheheh. 8-)

Food for thought: The last time the Longhorns beat a No. 1-ranked team? In the 2006 Rose Bowl, when QB Vince Young and the Horns knocked off Southern Cal to win the 2005 National Championship.

I remember attempting to describe this course to my friends. Professor North is an older gentleman who has had many experiences and who has seen much in his life. His students are privileged to hear of his experiences in his classes, and we are even more privileged to be able to listen to the wisdom that he has gleaned from his years on earth. Attending his class was like entering his living room. He invited us in and began speaking, and though he spoke of poetry, he could not help but give us knowledge greater than simply what the poet was trying to say.

Poetry, he says, is a way for us to "read experiences that are like our own, that we can identify with, that affirm ourselves."

We discussed some of my favourite poets in this class – Tennyson, Hopkins, Arnold, Browning – and through each step of the course, we could see the above-quoted theme carrying through. While discussing Tennyson's In Memorium and explaining to us why this poem was so popular when first published, North said,

Tennyson explores grief and put into words for people for the first time their internal worlds and emotions.

In Memorium was a poem that Tennyson wrote over the course of twenty years as he mourned the loss of his best friend. We all have these experiences and these "internal worlds and emotions", but most of us cannot put words to them. With this poem, Tennyson took something that was incredibly well-experienced, but very rarely expressed (that is, grief), and finally put it to words. Poetry touches the ineffable.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

~Aldous Huxley

I would class poetry with music.

I found Professor North's class to be an incredibly healing one. Through his class, he carried us into the very depths of the poem, often to the core of our souls, inviting us to examine what we found there, and to actually feel the emotions that we carried within us. It wasn't that he was not content with a surface-level analysis of a poem; it was that remaining on the surface never even occurred to him. He is a man deeply in love with his wife, passionate about his God, and incredibly moved by the pieces he reads, and all of this came through in his lectures.

Poetry gives shape and a voice to our internal world; it affirms us, we are less alone.

The excitement in Hopkins is that his world makes sense. The problem is that oftentimes our world just doesn’t make sense. When the dark sonnets come, we can see that he has made sense in the non-sense. Despite the darkness, there is joy.

Poetry gives us an insight into other people’s hearts and minds, and into our own. It gives all of that shape, brings form out of chaos. We can understand what we never understood before, and through another’s writing, we realize it is true. It is satisfying both to have words for it, and to realize that someone else feels the way that we do. It takes the loneliness out of life.

It’s hard to fight with evil, but consider the consequence of not fighting with evil.

Evil cannot exist on its own; by definition, it is a perversion of good.

Even evil is under God’s authority.

[Poetry helps us to] accept the potential of the future, without rejecting the beauty of the past.

Poetry says far more than the poet knows he or she is saying.

Poetry is so powerful that it affects us to the core, even if we don’t know why.

We often only need to see something or hear something and we are transformed.

Be aware that you can’t study literature without being changed inside, in spite of yourself.

(the above all taken during Professor North's Fall '07 Victorian Poetry class)

Well... CRAP. #1 no more.  C'est la vie.  Congrats to the Longhorns -- they played the better game.  We got beat by a very good team.  The OU defense struggled when Ryan Reynolds went out with a likely season-ending knee injury.  Fortunately, the season is not over by any means, although it's a bitter pill to swallow whenever we lose to Texas.

To console ourselves, we'll leave you with a scene from Animal House while drinking this afternoon and evening: