Category: Staff Blogs (page 8)

Unruly Spaces and the Internet Syllabus

When you think about the syllabus, you think about policies, contracts, and expectations. The syllabus is a fiction that governs the classroom space, establishing values and expectations for who can be in that space and what that space should look like. Syllabi define what is possible. And, for a long time, the syllabus has remained inside the institutional spaces of the university.

As I’ve imagined my own syllabi for the fall, I’ve found the most urgent and radical syllabus-making is taking place elsewhere.

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Travel makes me pay attention. Discomfort helps, too.

In March 2016 I arrived in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles with no context and no idea of how this city was laid out. (My fault; I did no research. Between grad school and work I hardly had the time to book a room, let alone look up things to do in the area. This is a familiar theme for me.)

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Envy, Ingratitude and Hope: Why Elena Ferrante is a Bad Role Model

I have just finished reading Elena Ferrante’s first Neapolitan novel, “My Brilliant Friend.” I must admit, it’s wonderful. Yes, she’s captured an entire life. Yes, it made me cry and, yes, of course, I immediately wanted to go to Naples and try a Ferrante pizza (which is 100% real).

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Write Dangerous, or Write Safe?

The January/February 2016 issue of Poets & Writers magazine features a stimulating essay by author and writing instructor Tom Spanbauer called “Dangerous Writing: Go to Your Battlefield.”

“To write dangerous is to go to parts of ourselves that we know exist but try to ignore,” Spanbauer writes. “Parts that are silent, and heavy. Taboo. Things that won’t leave us alone.”

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In Praise of Indoor Spaces: A Photo Essay

On any given day, I prefer being out of doors. I’m a hiker, a gardener, a beach bum, a wanderer. Being inside is difficult. For me, Seasonal Affective Disorder manifests itself as claustrophobia.

Unfortunately, I live in a part of the world that gets a very real winter. Short days, snow, clouds covering the sun. Chafed ankles from snow boots. Chilled red ears from a biting wind.

This is the time of year when we make resolutions to do better, be better. I’m going to try to think better. I will try to enjoy being indoors more, and take more opportunities to create. Sitting at a table. Knitting by a fire.

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Speaking As A Student: How Valuable is my Voice?

When I started writing stories, at perhaps seven or eight, I never lacked any confidence in my choice of subject matter. Comic books about superhero penguins, page-long stories about gremlins in the garden, copyright-infringing narratives about Bugs Bunny. These ideas were not ground-breaking,

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Strangers, Stations and Surprises: How I Learned to be Inspired by New York

“You shouldn’t be reading things like that. You ought to throw that book away,” came the final words of the woman on the train station platform as I slunk, tail between my legs, between the closing doors.

Having lived in the Empire State for more than a year now, I have become used to idle small talk.

But this was not enough to prepare me for the woman on the train station platform.

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