OK, I haven't received many books this week - though I've ordered a lot of previously unavailable Keith Roberts novels: he wrote the wondrous Pavane (England as a non-Reformed Catholic nation desperate to repress technological development and free thought: a combative take on Catholicism but a popular one in intellectual history). I don't think many of his novels are up to Pavane's standard, but he's always interesting and an essential part of the English SF/catastrophe tradition headed by Wyndham and Ballard. His obituary suggests that he was a very unpleasant man.
Today's post brought a very interesting book, D. A. Miller's 1992 The Novel and the Police, which seems to take a Foucauldian line into the Victorian period's obsession with policing and detectives - I've read similar things in the past for teaching purposes, but Miller's book looks like the last word (I know, there's no such thing in literary studies) on the subject. He sees Victorian novels as 'the often unconscious agents of a disciplinary culture… keeping a public in its private place': as I'm currently reading Trollope's He Knew He Was Right (past the 500 page mark, only 400 to go), I can quite understand: the characters are only slightly grotesque: functioning as lessons to us all about how to be men and women, wives and husbands.
The other line on Victorians and detection is that the culture inherited the Protestant tradition of self-examination (hence the prevalence of spiritual diaries etc) and added a degree of social surveillance (e.g. the growth of middle-class do-gooders intent on disciplining the lower orders, such as the RSPCA, which prosecuted people for overworking their donkeys but left hunters alone), allied to the new developments in science. Suddenly everything could or should be visible. The application of rational methods and science would unravel the secrets of everything, from slum life to the universe. Convinced that everything had a logical explanation, the Victorian's duty was to uncover God's mechanisms - finding the chains of causality, deducing the murderer's identity from his cologne and measuring his cranial dimensions were all about control - fending off the dreadful darkness of randomness, decay and irrationality which stirred in the darker corners of both the brain and the city. If Mr Holmes can detect the crime from a cigar butt, the universe is comprehensible. There is a plan. You can all relax because God's in charge. If he can't… the deluge.
Of course rationality led - ironically for the Victorians - to atheism, and to World War 1, the Holocaust and all sorts of evils, thanks to the popularity of imperialism, eugenics and allied 'scientific' beliefs. Oddly enough, today is the birthday of Rex Warner (1905-1986), one of my favourite authors. In particular, his The Aerodrome (1941) takes up similar concerns a few years later. In the 1930s, fascists and pilots existed in a state of mutual admiration: flight represented the triumph of the Machine: the individual hero could literally gain a new perspective on the ant-like scurrying of the proletarian untermenschen: once separated from the mass, the clinical application of the bomb begins to seem like a rational, surgical operation rather than an atrocity. Warner, once a Marxist and always a lefty humanist, sees things differently: in The Aerodrome, the fascist flight lieutenant uses the village population's admiration for his Modern superiority for his own ends, before being exposed as a fraud. It's a great novel - thrilling, outspoken and at odds with mainstream culture of the time. Acclaimed by the Popular Front/proletarian literature crowd as 'one of us' (he was actually a philandering toff), Warner's virtue is that he could really write. To him, the cleanliness and order of the air base is anti humanist, whereas the village is where life happens - if only more architects and politicians read his work. Highly recommended.
Friday, 9 March 2012
Money money money
What a frustrating but amusing morning. I was called for a 'Banking Health Check' by the Co-Op. It's not that long since putting my card into the ATM was a risky venture: I still start to sweat in the little pause between asking for money and the notes appearing. Too many times in the past did a semi-polite message inform me that my fervent prayers had been 'declined'.
So I turned up with some considerable trepidation. I may not check my statements very often, but I know very well that I'm rather fiscally promiscuous. I'm also - or so I thought - too young to worry about this stuff. So when a 23 year old started tapping keys and frowning, I started to panic. She asked whether I'd made a will (a silent 'grandad' ended each sentence) and I felt like someone was asking me for more pocket money. When the discussion turned to pensions I wanted to cry: my retirement date is now 2044, when I'll be 68. Being an SF fan, I've always wanted to see what the future looked like, but I was kind of hoping that I wouldn't have to be doing it from the front of a lecture hall. Cool and hip I may be, but I can't imagine that 2044's teenagers will see things quite as I do by then.
We went through my expenditures - utilities, taxes, bills, which was miserable enough: how do I become so encumbered and enmeshed? - but it was OK until we reached my 'discretionary spending'. Heads were shaken when we discovered that my water and electricity costs £50 a month: about the same I spend on books each week. Apparently books and music 'aren't investments' and my lack of insurance ('home? mobile? travel? gadgets?) 'isn't very responsible'. They were also shocked that I don't spend £1000 annually on holidays. They were very nice, but couldn't understand why I didn't want to pay £12.50 a month for a bank account which pays 0% interest.
All in vain - I declined to buy further products, and when I expressed an interest in savings schemes, we discovered that I don't exist: no Experian record, and without a driving licence, I have no standing in society. Never mind that I presented them with my Irish passport, or that I've been a Co-Op customer for 15 years: no car, no cash.
I'm a bad citizen. Another self-criticism session is arranged for next week.
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Farewell, the Press Complaints Commission
It only lasted 21 years.
It has never had a Chair who wasn't a Conservative peer.
It's being replaced by a 'transitional body' headed by three people, two of whom are prominent Conservative activists.
It totally failed to stop phone hacking: Baroness Buscombe asked the News of the World if it was hacking phones. The paper denied the claim, and she duly told the Guardian that it was telling lies.
I've personal experience of the Press Complaints Commission. I complained about the local paper's abuse of Travellers and Gypsies: it kept using animal metaphors about them and linking their ethnicity to criminal activity.
The PCC told me that claiming that being a member of an ethnic group automatically leads to criminal behaviour is not a breach of the Code. Apparently you can't say 'X is a criminal because he is a Gypsy/Jew/Afro-Caribbean', but you can say 'All Gypsies/Jews/Afro-Caribbeans are criminals'. Only individuals can be discriminated against under the PCC Code. No wonder Adrian Sanders MP described the PCC as 'as useful as a fishnet condom'.
So I won't be mourning its passing - but I do suspect that its eventual replacement will be another Establishment stitch-up, staffed by Tory donors, placemen and preference-seekers.
It has never had a Chair who wasn't a Conservative peer.
It's being replaced by a 'transitional body' headed by three people, two of whom are prominent Conservative activists.
It totally failed to stop phone hacking: Baroness Buscombe asked the News of the World if it was hacking phones. The paper denied the claim, and she duly told the Guardian that it was telling lies.
I've personal experience of the Press Complaints Commission. I complained about the local paper's abuse of Travellers and Gypsies: it kept using animal metaphors about them and linking their ethnicity to criminal activity.
The PCC told me that claiming that being a member of an ethnic group automatically leads to criminal behaviour is not a breach of the Code. Apparently you can't say 'X is a criminal because he is a Gypsy/Jew/Afro-Caribbean', but you can say 'All Gypsies/Jews/Afro-Caribbeans are criminals'. Only individuals can be discriminated against under the PCC Code. No wonder Adrian Sanders MP described the PCC as 'as useful as a fishnet condom'.
So I won't be mourning its passing - but I do suspect that its eventual replacement will be another Establishment stitch-up, staffed by Tory donors, placemen and preference-seekers.
International Women's Day - a visual tribute (3)
Final few pictures of women being cool to mark International Women's Day.
OK, being a Muse (history in this case) is a bit ideologically suspect, but it's a great image. From the philology department at Vilnius University, Lithuania
My union comrades fighting the good fight
European Championships, women's foil wheelchair competition
European Championships, women's sabre
International Women's Day - a visual tribute (2)
Every woman I know has a residual horror of Girl's World
A bust of Hilda Ogden, terror of Coronation Street
Determined public sector women
Scottish Junior Women's Foil team
Domestic servant propaganda, 1920s
Banner from the Suffrage Atelier design studio, currently at the People's History Museum in Manchester
Anti-suffrage poster at the People's History Museum
1968 Paris Revolutionary poster
International Women's Day - a visual tribute (1)
Seeing as it's International Women's Day and I know lots and lots of admirable women - as colleagues, comrades, students and through my sporting life, I thought I'd share some of my photographs of cool women doing stuff.
One of my more outgoing colleagues
A protester on a march for jobs
Teenage militant
Not sure how that lemon got there
Her brother wanted me to take their picture. She reluctantly agreed after weighing the possibility of my being 'a paedo'. But she kept her guard up.
Sheer determination
Leah King - rising star of England and GB fencing
Francesca Summers (Eng women's foil) in full flight
Gloriously clichéd 1950s painting of a nurse.
Lessons from history
…the real disgrace of England is the railway sandwich, – that whited sepulchre, fair enough outside, but so meagre, poor and spiritless within, such a thing of shreds and parings, such a dab of food, telling us that the poor bone whence it was scraped had been made utterly bare before it was sent into the kitchen for the soup pot. (Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right, 1869)Still true, 140 years later. Eating anything from a railway station is an exercise in extortion and gustatory torture. For the price of a decent curry in any West Midlands town, you're presented with a rock hard, tasteless lump of 'bread' containing stale and flavour-free substances masquerading as cheese, meat or vegetables. Douglas Adams knew a lot about British railway and pub food. He once speculated that British pub food was meant as
'a form of penance for some forgotten, but unimaginably dire sin. The sausages are for those who know what their sins are, and wish to atone for something specific'.This is probably why Arthur Dent retired to an obscure planet to become a tribe's Sandwich Maker. Douglas Adams also had something to say about academia:
“It is often said that a disproportionate obsession with purely academic or abstract matter indicates a retreat from the problems of real life. However, most of the people engaged in such matters say that this attitude is based on three things: ignorance, stupidity, and nothing else.”Guilty.
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Congratulations! You Are My 100,000th Visitor!
Sadly, the chap or chapess whose IP address is 89.243.102.# doesn't win a FREE LAPTOP!!!, iPAD3 or anything else because I don't possess any of those things.
It does feel odd to have laid my soul bare for 100,000 people over the past 3-and-a-bit years, since my very first - and astonishingly boring - post. Back then, I was young, surprisingly fatter than I am now, and dumb. I didn't found Plashing Vole with any grand intentions: if I had, it would have a catchier name and sleeker design. The sad truth is that it was started because I'd been asked to do a class on New Media (and it was, then) for the MA students. In my naivety, I decided that a practical demonstration would be better than a dry explanation, so I set up the blog in class using the projector, and required the students to set up their own blogs, link to each other and me, then discuss some American new media election campaigns (primarily Howard Dean's online activity) on their own blogs.
Was it successful? Er… not exactly. None had heard of blogging. One literally went to sleep. A couple commented on my post, and none of them set up their own blogs. But it worked for me: despite not having an audience, I realised that this was an excellent way to propagate my strong political opinions, find new friends and ideas, and rant about unfashionable books and music. I never developed the strong academic blog that's so successful - I'm too unfocussed, but I've had a great time. I still talk about work, books I'm teaching, relationships with students (not that sort) and so on, but I haven't used Vole for pedagogical purposes, largely because I've had some sharp things to say about my institution, and don't entirely fancy being sacked.
The best bit about blogging isn't the exposure it's given me, but the exposure I've had to other people: the whims of the internet are beyond my ken. It's hard to know what will catch the public eye: my rant about Baroness Warsi, militant atheism and the American Culture Wars got a lot of readers (2000 in one day) because comedian Marcus Brigstocke tweeted it to his 101,000 followers. A discussion I raised about the decline of public intellectual was republished by LSE and others, and has led to review offers and interesting conversations. I've had columns published in the HEA's English Matter newsletter, the Times Higher Education Supplement and the Guardian Higher Education site, and been a panellist on various HE-related discussions as a result of Vole. But perhaps the most viewed piece I've ever posted was a rant about 4x4 owners - simply because it included a picture of a horrible new Range Rover. Occasionally I think I've written something genuinely fine and it sinks unread to the depths - at other times I'll throw something out there and find it's hit the mark.
I know there are a limited range of subjects to which I return: books, teaching, politics and 90s guitar bands. I've been guilty sometimes of blogging for the sake of it sometimes, which is wrong - I've slowed down a little recently as I find myself with little new to say. I'm aware too that Plashing Vole is a massive distraction. People ask me how I get any work done and blog so much: the truth is that I don't have the confidence to produce good academic research, so allow myself to pretend that blogging is a form of public engagement deserving equal respect. It may be, but not the way I do it. My resolution is to force myself to get some more research done: blogging is a little bit too much like crack in this respect: very moreish.
I also tend to avoid talking about my private life: much as I admire the emotional openness of those who do, I'm not made like that, and I'm aware that I have a duty of discretion to friends, family and students. Which is a shame, because most of them are absolute freaks and I could tell you stories which would make your eyeballs pop out.
Who reads me? I have a dedicated band of aunts, colleagues, students and friends who drop in, and I've gathered a small network of other academics who might constitute a public, but it's hard to say otherwise: linking frequently and including pictures make me accessible via Google, so the vast majority of visitors are probably random people looking for a particular picture rather than supplicants seeking enlightenment. I think this is healthy: despite my frequent reference to establishing a Stalinist regime, I don't suffer delusions of grandeur about Plashing Vole's place in the media sphere. This is a good thing: sometimes I get a little too concerned when my readership slumps: it's usually between 120-200 a day. Obviously I'd like everybody in the world to read Vole, but chasing readers leads to controversy for controversy's sake, or a populism with which I'm not entirely comfortable. I would like more discussion though - more comments.
Finally, some recommendations. These are the people I look forward to reading most days, whom I admire for their intelligence, wit, emotional depth and erudition.
Adam Curtis: occasional lengthy posts encompassing all of political and cultural history seen from a unique perspective.
Blossom's Blog: one of my mature students who writes beautifully, bravely and honestly about her family, divorce, adventures with internet dating, being a student and much else besides.
BoingBoing: the grandaddy of cool fun left-liberal pop culture and new media and science and activism sites. Truly eye-opening.
CREWblog: rarely updated but key to finding out what the hip young kids of Welsh Writing in English research are up to. I'm a bit isolated in the field being at The Hegemon, so it's great being able to keep up to some extent.
Gwyneth Jones: she's hip, lefty, feminist and one of the best authors on the planet.
Distracting from the Now and Old Girl at Uni: blogs by a medievalist Canadian student and a mature PhD student: both full of enthusiasm, erudition and wit. Makes me remember not being broken-down and cynical. Tales From The Reading Room is the best place on the internet to talk about books: how Litlove manages to read all this stuff, let alone come up with such intelligent analysis astonishes me every time. If there's a definition of blogging perfection, TFTRR fulfils it: thoughtful, informed, conversational and always engaged in discussion with interesting readers. Similarly, I always look forward to new entries by The Rise and Rise of Tim Lovejoy. Produced by one of my students, it's always written with wit and verve, and an amazing degree of erudition from one so young. He's often just plain wrong about things - especially politics - but he's become an essential read. Even about bloody baseball. The same is true - minus the baseball - about my old friend Benjamin Judge. Fiercely intelligent and possessing the superhero ability to have an opinion about absolutely everything, he makes me laugh even when he's being mean about me. I keep sending him gourmet food, which temporarily assuages the rage and will hopefully kill him before my own time comes. That way I'll get a few years' peace and quiet in which to listen to The Field Mice without abuse.
Music for Deckchairs: Kate works in the field of academic and university affairs in Australia. Her intellect and learning are astonishing - and she can really write. I've learned so much from her and her network of contacts. Similarly @qui_oui's blog at University Affairs/Affaires universitaires is endlessly fascinating - a true intellectual. She's called qui_oui because she's a New Zealander in French Canada. Now THAT's witty!
Pharyngula: hardline, funny leftwing militant atheism and squid from a superstar of science communication. Another American I like is Post-Raphaelite Sisterhood, a personal, graceful blog from a Tennessean educator. Some Chilean Woman is also a lovely read: the adventures of an ex-Mormon worker, musician and Scotsman's wife in Utah.
I'm a huge fan of punchy Marxist architecture obsessive Owen Hatherley, a man who mixes incredible detail with a clear wider understanding of the relationship between power and public space. Buy his books. I'm also fascinated by Irish politics and culture, which makes Slugger O'Toole essential reading. I its author(?) owner (?) editor (?) once - charming doesn't begin to describe him. Tabloid Watch and the Media Blog are excellent ways to keep an eye on the vapidity and viciousness of the media.
What of Plashing Vole's future? Well, I'll carry on in my ramshackle fashion. I do need to get some academic writing done, but that depends on factors other than my blogging output. I'll try to stay varied and be a little bit interesting, but Vole is, after all, an expression of my largely boring personality, so I won't promise excitement, adventure and really wild things. Or LOLcats.
But in the spirit of the web: what would you like more of? Less of? How's it all going? Who are you? Why are you here? Tell us your reckon.
(One thing hasn't changed: Blogger is still a useless pile of dreck which has always and will always ruin my neat formatting. How difficult can it be?).
It does feel odd to have laid my soul bare for 100,000 people over the past 3-and-a-bit years, since my very first - and astonishingly boring - post. Back then, I was young, surprisingly fatter than I am now, and dumb. I didn't found Plashing Vole with any grand intentions: if I had, it would have a catchier name and sleeker design. The sad truth is that it was started because I'd been asked to do a class on New Media (and it was, then) for the MA students. In my naivety, I decided that a practical demonstration would be better than a dry explanation, so I set up the blog in class using the projector, and required the students to set up their own blogs, link to each other and me, then discuss some American new media election campaigns (primarily Howard Dean's online activity) on their own blogs.
Was it successful? Er… not exactly. None had heard of blogging. One literally went to sleep. A couple commented on my post, and none of them set up their own blogs. But it worked for me: despite not having an audience, I realised that this was an excellent way to propagate my strong political opinions, find new friends and ideas, and rant about unfashionable books and music. I never developed the strong academic blog that's so successful - I'm too unfocussed, but I've had a great time. I still talk about work, books I'm teaching, relationships with students (not that sort) and so on, but I haven't used Vole for pedagogical purposes, largely because I've had some sharp things to say about my institution, and don't entirely fancy being sacked.
The best bit about blogging isn't the exposure it's given me, but the exposure I've had to other people: the whims of the internet are beyond my ken. It's hard to know what will catch the public eye: my rant about Baroness Warsi, militant atheism and the American Culture Wars got a lot of readers (2000 in one day) because comedian Marcus Brigstocke tweeted it to his 101,000 followers. A discussion I raised about the decline of public intellectual was republished by LSE and others, and has led to review offers and interesting conversations. I've had columns published in the HEA's English Matter newsletter, the Times Higher Education Supplement and the Guardian Higher Education site, and been a panellist on various HE-related discussions as a result of Vole. But perhaps the most viewed piece I've ever posted was a rant about 4x4 owners - simply because it included a picture of a horrible new Range Rover. Occasionally I think I've written something genuinely fine and it sinks unread to the depths - at other times I'll throw something out there and find it's hit the mark.
I know there are a limited range of subjects to which I return: books, teaching, politics and 90s guitar bands. I've been guilty sometimes of blogging for the sake of it sometimes, which is wrong - I've slowed down a little recently as I find myself with little new to say. I'm aware too that Plashing Vole is a massive distraction. People ask me how I get any work done and blog so much: the truth is that I don't have the confidence to produce good academic research, so allow myself to pretend that blogging is a form of public engagement deserving equal respect. It may be, but not the way I do it. My resolution is to force myself to get some more research done: blogging is a little bit too much like crack in this respect: very moreish.
I also tend to avoid talking about my private life: much as I admire the emotional openness of those who do, I'm not made like that, and I'm aware that I have a duty of discretion to friends, family and students. Which is a shame, because most of them are absolute freaks and I could tell you stories which would make your eyeballs pop out.
Who reads me? I have a dedicated band of aunts, colleagues, students and friends who drop in, and I've gathered a small network of other academics who might constitute a public, but it's hard to say otherwise: linking frequently and including pictures make me accessible via Google, so the vast majority of visitors are probably random people looking for a particular picture rather than supplicants seeking enlightenment. I think this is healthy: despite my frequent reference to establishing a Stalinist regime, I don't suffer delusions of grandeur about Plashing Vole's place in the media sphere. This is a good thing: sometimes I get a little too concerned when my readership slumps: it's usually between 120-200 a day. Obviously I'd like everybody in the world to read Vole, but chasing readers leads to controversy for controversy's sake, or a populism with which I'm not entirely comfortable. I would like more discussion though - more comments.
Finally, some recommendations. These are the people I look forward to reading most days, whom I admire for their intelligence, wit, emotional depth and erudition.
Adam Curtis: occasional lengthy posts encompassing all of political and cultural history seen from a unique perspective.
Blossom's Blog: one of my mature students who writes beautifully, bravely and honestly about her family, divorce, adventures with internet dating, being a student and much else besides.
BoingBoing: the grandaddy of cool fun left-liberal pop culture and new media and science and activism sites. Truly eye-opening.
CREWblog: rarely updated but key to finding out what the hip young kids of Welsh Writing in English research are up to. I'm a bit isolated in the field being at The Hegemon, so it's great being able to keep up to some extent.
Gwyneth Jones: she's hip, lefty, feminist and one of the best authors on the planet.
Distracting from the Now and Old Girl at Uni: blogs by a medievalist Canadian student and a mature PhD student: both full of enthusiasm, erudition and wit. Makes me remember not being broken-down and cynical. Tales From The Reading Room is the best place on the internet to talk about books: how Litlove manages to read all this stuff, let alone come up with such intelligent analysis astonishes me every time. If there's a definition of blogging perfection, TFTRR fulfils it: thoughtful, informed, conversational and always engaged in discussion with interesting readers. Similarly, I always look forward to new entries by The Rise and Rise of Tim Lovejoy. Produced by one of my students, it's always written with wit and verve, and an amazing degree of erudition from one so young. He's often just plain wrong about things - especially politics - but he's become an essential read. Even about bloody baseball. The same is true - minus the baseball - about my old friend Benjamin Judge. Fiercely intelligent and possessing the superhero ability to have an opinion about absolutely everything, he makes me laugh even when he's being mean about me. I keep sending him gourmet food, which temporarily assuages the rage and will hopefully kill him before my own time comes. That way I'll get a few years' peace and quiet in which to listen to The Field Mice without abuse.
Music for Deckchairs: Kate works in the field of academic and university affairs in Australia. Her intellect and learning are astonishing - and she can really write. I've learned so much from her and her network of contacts. Similarly @qui_oui's blog at University Affairs/Affaires universitaires is endlessly fascinating - a true intellectual. She's called qui_oui because she's a New Zealander in French Canada. Now THAT's witty!
Pharyngula: hardline, funny leftwing militant atheism and squid from a superstar of science communication. Another American I like is Post-Raphaelite Sisterhood, a personal, graceful blog from a Tennessean educator. Some Chilean Woman is also a lovely read: the adventures of an ex-Mormon worker, musician and Scotsman's wife in Utah.
I'm a huge fan of punchy Marxist architecture obsessive Owen Hatherley, a man who mixes incredible detail with a clear wider understanding of the relationship between power and public space. Buy his books. I'm also fascinated by Irish politics and culture, which makes Slugger O'Toole essential reading. I its author(?) owner (?) editor (?) once - charming doesn't begin to describe him. Tabloid Watch and the Media Blog are excellent ways to keep an eye on the vapidity and viciousness of the media.
What of Plashing Vole's future? Well, I'll carry on in my ramshackle fashion. I do need to get some academic writing done, but that depends on factors other than my blogging output. I'll try to stay varied and be a little bit interesting, but Vole is, after all, an expression of my largely boring personality, so I won't promise excitement, adventure and really wild things. Or LOLcats.
But in the spirit of the web: what would you like more of? Less of? How's it all going? Who are you? Why are you here? Tell us your reckon.
(One thing hasn't changed: Blogger is still a useless pile of dreck which has always and will always ruin my neat formatting. How difficult can it be?).
Mortality suddenly becomes real
This song is 18 years old.
Half my life ago.
The year my fresher students were born.
And I remember thinking (and still do) that it's not a patch on the preceding album, Modern Life is Rubbish. I always thought that Blur's melancholic songs were their strong point. I think that means I'm old.
I was working in a horrible family fun pub that summer, for £1.50 per hour. The chefs would grill the plates so that we waiters would burn our hands. When the salad was sent back because it had live maggots in it, a friend and I were made to go through the industrial bin in which it came, picking out the larvae before continuing to serve it. Persuading drunk, aggressive parents not to carry their glasses into the urine-soaked ball pool was a particular pleasure.
Music played in one corner of the pub. There was one cassette tape on a loop for the whole three months. It had two songs one it which weren't SWV, Phil Collins and assorted tripe: Oasis's 'Cigarettes and Alcohol' and 'Girls And Boys'. Trying to find myself in that corner when those songs were played was my only ambition every day.
Compared to all the other thousands of songs I own, they're not that special - but for the relief and joy they gave me in that grim, disgusting place, I'll always love them.
Half my life ago.
The year my fresher students were born.
And I remember thinking (and still do) that it's not a patch on the preceding album, Modern Life is Rubbish. I always thought that Blur's melancholic songs were their strong point. I think that means I'm old.
I was working in a horrible family fun pub that summer, for £1.50 per hour. The chefs would grill the plates so that we waiters would burn our hands. When the salad was sent back because it had live maggots in it, a friend and I were made to go through the industrial bin in which it came, picking out the larvae before continuing to serve it. Persuading drunk, aggressive parents not to carry their glasses into the urine-soaked ball pool was a particular pleasure.
Music played in one corner of the pub. There was one cassette tape on a loop for the whole three months. It had two songs one it which weren't SWV, Phil Collins and assorted tripe: Oasis's 'Cigarettes and Alcohol' and 'Girls And Boys'. Trying to find myself in that corner when those songs were played was my only ambition every day.
Compared to all the other thousands of songs I own, they're not that special - but for the relief and joy they gave me in that grim, disgusting place, I'll always love them.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Never let the bastards grind you down
I'm really pleased that the Secretary of State for Health can only carry out PR stunt visits to hospitals with the aid of a phalanx of cops and security guards. In this excellent video, an enraged doctor puts down his golf clubs to take up arms in defence of public health. This is what I want from the next 4 years until the election: a government forced to duck and weave as angry citizens make their disapproval manifest - not smug rich men behaving as though they were elected with a huge majority and solid mandate. Nobody voted for the privatisation of the NHS, policing and education, but that's what's happening. That gives us the right to harass, heckle and torment these arrogant bastards every time they appear in public.
Meanwhile, just because it's being going through my head all day, and it's a brilliant burst of feminist enthusiasm and musical genius, Bikini Kill's 'Rebel Girl'.
Meanwhile, just because it's being going through my head all day, and it's a brilliant burst of feminist enthusiasm and musical genius, Bikini Kill's 'Rebel Girl'.
Yawning your way through class
Last week, one of my excellent students regaled us with the tale of when she fell asleep in a colleague's lecture, to be woken by him hammering on the desk next to her head. She'd been working very long hours to pay for her education, so it's not a tale of idleness.
I can sympathise. I've fallen asleep in lectures myself. When I was a postgrad, my undergrad friend James was told to attend a video-conference as an odd sort of punishment for turning up to basically no classes all term. I went along with him after a hard day's work, sat next to a radiator and promptly dropped off, minutes after laughing at the other guy snoring away on camera… Ferocious glares were apparently directed at me by the course leader and I don't suppose I aided James's rehabilitation too much either. I've also fallen asleep in colleagues' lectures - not because of the (always high) quality of the material, but because the chairs are comfortable, the rooms warm, I'd had a soporific lunch and some of them have lulling, languid voices. I'm always tired, so when conditions are right, I'll nod off. Except at night, damn it. It's the same at concerts and the theatre - I've dozed off during the finale of Mahler's 8th, which is amongst the loudest pieces ever written. Thankfully - and shamefully - one of my students gave me a poke in the ribs and I accepted the giggling as fair exchange.
However, there's a wider point. Are lectures generally boring as a pedagogical mode? Fashionable opinion holds that they're outmoded, unsuited to the different 'learning styles' of our students and a legacy of a pre-digital past. We're encouraged to use voting handsets, Twitter, 'break out' sessions and all sorts of devices to divert us from the hierarchical, linear lecture. There's a really interesting discussion about this over at KateMfD's site.
I think this is total bollocks. The 'learning styles' argument is particularly weak: if there are lots of styles and only one teacher, there's no way to satisfy everyone. Use varied techniques, sure, but there are limits. Lectures are also practical: as a means of distributing ideas while engaging in debate with learners, you can't really beat getting everyone in the same room, presenting them with some ideas and asking them to respond.
As for the use of technology to make lectures 'fun' or 'interactive', I think it's a con. It assumes that if you introduce a computer into proceedings, students will automatically love it, which seems very patronising to me - as the clip above shows, students are alienated by Powerpoint reliance, for instance. It also seems reductive. I can think of plenty of lecture scenarios which might usefully employ instant voting software - but most of the questions I and my students raise are qualitative rather than quantitative. I suspect that in my field, yes/no and statistical questions of the sort social media are good at would be too reductive. On the other hand, using such things might get more responses than a question.
One of the useful things about a lecture is that you're eyeball-to-eyeball with your audience. I can tell when people are texting, listening to music, checking Facebook, Tweeting or simply zoned out (as Kate points out, we do it too: I frequently blog my way through meetings about challenges, entrepreneurial approaches blah blah blah).
In fact, academics are experts in pokerfaced management of boredom, and this is why we’re genuinely sorry when in turn we’re the cause of it for others. We don’t set out to bore, or to drone, and we’re not indifferent to the passing of time.When this happens, I know that I've got to change things, make something happen (unless it's one of the usual suspects who see lectures as somewhere warm in which to pursue their social lives). In some ways, the PowerPoint is anti-educational: students know that the slides will be posted on the intranet later, and assume that what's on there is 'the education': my job is to persuade them that education is the bit that happens in between me, them and each other - the slides are little more than an aide-memoire. Similarly, online courses, unless designed very carefully, are anti-educational. I'm quite happy for my students to have slides and video of my lectures to go over at their own speed later on, but only if they've attended the session. With an online lecture, I can't skip bits, emphasise others, ask questions, respond to queries: video-lectures encode a very old-fashioned power structure while pretending to be progressive. The student's power is reduced to hitting 'pause' or 'replay' now and then: any queries go unanswered.
It’s true that sometimes we’re genuinely underprepared, still thinking aloud, and asking ourselves questions as we go—both because we care about the ideas we’re introducing, and because in the rest of our working lives we’re flat out, just as our students are.I think the answer to the question is contained here. 'Thinking aloud' is the essence of the humanities lecture. Students listen to us because we're highly trained in the field - not because we're necessarily more intelligent than them. We've been paid to spend time thinking about things. We know that there's no definitive answer to any text, field or question: just endlessly fascinating ways to examine them. If we can persuade the student that 'thinking aloud' in an informed way is the educational experience, we've got it right. A good academic is always 'asking ourselves questions': the trick is to persuade our listeners that these are good questions. I always find that I understand a subject better when I've had to teach it - because putting myself in the place of a sceptical listener really focuses the mind on what's relevant and important.
The point of an English lecture is to present some texts, propose some ways to think about them, and ask the students to engage with the texts and ideas. The secret to making a lecture interesting isn't to dream up ways to introduce machines. It's to be interesting. I do it like this: pose some questions at the start. Explain why the particular texts illuminate the question, never make it sound like there are 'right' answers, and always find ways to get the students to talk to me: getting them to talk about a question for a few minutes, asking for alternative analyses, engaging in polemical debate.
The one thing I do when I'm feeling militantly enthusiastic is to destabilise the process. Students find lectures boring and easy when they expect an hour of being talked at. Asking them questions is one way to introduce life to the experience. Another is to switch off the PowerPoint, and to refuse to make slides available. I've also nicked the psychoanalysts' trick of not lecturing for an hour if it's not required. Stop at a major point, whether that's on 50 minutes or 70. Subvert expectations. Start in media res. Be dramatic.
Obviously there are plenty of times I fail - few things are more terrifying than a silent audience, though I can well remember the fear when asked a question by my own lecturers. The point is: interesting people with interesting ideas who are interested in their students make interesting lectures. It's not about technology or tricksy ideas: it's about mutual enthusiasm. You need both parties to be enthusiastic. The bad lectures I've been to (and delivered) are those in which either the teacher, the students or both have been disengaged. The good ones I've seen - and occasionally delivered - are those in which I and the students are swept along on a tide of enthusiasm: I recently did one on architecture, the city, power and culture which was received really well by the audience, who'd never come across anything like it before. What a shame only 6 people turned up…
However, the lecture needs reviewing: it's too often used as a way to deliver facts to lots of people cheaply. Facts, as Jeff Young says, are easily available without paying me to find them, while lots of universities are putting lectures online. What I add to that is the personal touch (not literally). If you abandon this, you abandon humanist education in favour of autocratic reductionism. I agree with Kate that the anti-lecture brigade are proposing a straw-man model of delivery to attack. Good lecturers don't just drone on giving out information that's easily available in other formats. Good lecturers know that education is about collaboration. We're secure enough to welcome 'interruptions' - it's the wrong word, because I want people to talk in my lectures - and we believe in educational partnership. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the linear, one-way lecture is a common experience, at least amongst secure, enthusiastic teachers.
But our pedagogical overlords don't see it like this. They think that prospectuses look lots better illustrated with pictures of students sitting individually at computers. Well, I've been a data entry clerk. There's nothing liberating about sitting at a screen. What's liberatory is screwing up your courage to disagree with your lecturer or your colleagues, is asking a question or contributing an idea in the midst of an ocean of bored or scared fellows. I was a quiet little mouse (vole?) at university, until I realised that I'd get nothing out of the experience by staying silent and writing down everything I was told. Forcing myself to speak was terrifying - and it's what got me here today. (By 'here today', I mean 12 years in a 'temporary' job not getting any research done, but that's beside the point). I still physically shake before starting a lecture, but I do it, and hopefully do it well.
I have one word for teachers and students alike: courage!
Waking up the post-punk way
Anyone else like Wire? You might have heard their songs stolen (yes, a court case proved it) by the wonderful Elastica ('Three Girl Rhumba'/Connection) and Menswear, or covered by REM ('Strange') and pretty much every other band I like. They appeared in the late seventies as a weird, art-school take on punk: Pink Flag was an oddly melodic assault on the senses - 21 songs in 36 minutes, lyrics seemingly alternately heartfelt or collaged.
Unlike most bands, they didn't fade, but remained - like The Blue Nile or Tindersticks - critical favourites, bands' bands. Last year's Red Barked Tree is a masterpiece: it's recognisably pop, but twisted, enigmatic and utterly at odds with what everybody else is doing.
Some highlights:
'Three Girl Rhumba':
and for comparison, Elastica's stunning 'Connection':
The sublime 'Outdoor Miner' - which oddly reminds me of XTC and The Trash Can Sinatras in its machine-like smoothness and catchy melody:
'Strange', followed by the REM version:
Please Take (2011)
Unlike most bands, they didn't fade, but remained - like The Blue Nile or Tindersticks - critical favourites, bands' bands. Last year's Red Barked Tree is a masterpiece: it's recognisably pop, but twisted, enigmatic and utterly at odds with what everybody else is doing.
Some highlights:
'Three Girl Rhumba':
and for comparison, Elastica's stunning 'Connection':
The sublime 'Outdoor Miner' - which oddly reminds me of XTC and The Trash Can Sinatras in its machine-like smoothness and catchy melody:
'Strange', followed by the REM version:
Please Take (2011)
The way to a woman's heart is through her library
I'm reading Anthony Trollope's He Knew He Was Right (every blogger's secret motto) at the moment. I'm only 250 pages into this 900 page monster, but I'm enjoying it, despite Trollope's very reactionary approach to women's rights and personalities. He likes intelligent women. He just doesn't want them to work, vote or make any impact on public life. Jemima Stanbury is a magnificent creation: waspish, headstrong and determined, though also a reactionary bully. Mr and Mrs Trevelyan, the central protagonists, are vain, selfish and emotionally stunted, which drives the plot.
A couple of features amused me. The first is the identity of the home-wrecker: an aristocratic, rich Tory MP called Osborne… The second is Mr. Stansbury's didactic approach to romance:
Poor Mr Stansbury, however, doesn't find it plain sailing: when the moment comes, the passing moods of both himself and Nora, his intended, prevent any declaration and they part with considerable annoyance on both sides. Will they get together? I'll let you know in 700 pages' time…
A couple of features amused me. The first is the identity of the home-wrecker: an aristocratic, rich Tory MP called Osborne… The second is Mr. Stansbury's didactic approach to romance:
When a man can tell a young lady what she ought to read, what she ought to do, and whom she ought to know, nothing can be easier than to assure her that, of all her duties, her first duty is to prefer himself to all the world. And any young lady who has consented to receive lessons from such a teacher, will generally be willing to received this special lesson among others.Ha! As my job is mostly teaching 'young ladies' (the English BA is at least 80% female), I spend rather a lot of time telling them what they 'ought' to read, though I wouldn't presume to dictate anything further, nor would I wish to found a Cult of Vole (though a Vole Regime/Junta is very much on the wider agenda), though some academics do cultivate such followings: and some students assume that this is part of the fun. I do recommend books a lot though - to family, friends, colleagues and students.
Poor Mr Stansbury, however, doesn't find it plain sailing: when the moment comes, the passing moods of both himself and Nora, his intended, prevent any declaration and they part with considerable annoyance on both sides. Will they get together? I'll let you know in 700 pages' time…
Monday, 5 March 2012
Books in…
Only two books today: Anita by Keith Roberts, the very elusive but highly talented SF and fantasy author. This one looks like a bit of pulp, to be honest, but I became a bit of a completist after reading his Pavane a few years ago. The young witch and her older peers - Granny and Aggie - make me wonder if Terry Pratchett has read Anita, while Pavane features the roadside semaphore posts that Pratchetts calls 'clacks': lots of similarities.
The other is Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society, sent to me by the LSE book reviews blog - they liked my old piece on public intellectuals and have asked me to review this one. Should be fun. If anyone else has books they'd like to donate in return for some intemperate words, I'm willing. I haven't read the Sowell book yet, so won't comment at this stage, but I'm looking forward to it. It should work in tandem with Tony Judt's great book on 20th-century intellectuals.
The other is Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society, sent to me by the LSE book reviews blog - they liked my old piece on public intellectuals and have asked me to review this one. Should be fun. If anyone else has books they'd like to donate in return for some intemperate words, I'm willing. I haven't read the Sowell book yet, so won't comment at this stage, but I'm looking forward to it. It should work in tandem with Tony Judt's great book on 20th-century intellectuals.
Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it…
… says Mephostophilis in Dr. Faustus.
I thought of these lines, and the mammoth failings of urban planners, when I read that only 55 Valencia fans came to Stoke for the Europa Cup match last month, compared with the 6000+ Potters who descended on the Spanish city.
I suspect the quality of urban architecture and planning would improve rapidly if all students of the subject - like my dear cousin - were made to take a sandwich year in Stoke, Hull, Blackburn or any of the other despoiled and depressed cities which litter the country ('Come friendly bombs, and fall on Slough / It's not fit for humans now', as Betjeman wrote in a snobbishly unpleasant poem).
I give you in evidence, some shots of Hanley Bus Station (rest here) - Hanley's the principal shopping area in the Six Towns which make up Stoke-on-Trent. Someone had a go at gaiety… and failed miserably.
Could be worse: could be Detroit (warning: contains heartbreak), although that city has a certain grandeur in its ruins.
I thought of these lines, and the mammoth failings of urban planners, when I read that only 55 Valencia fans came to Stoke for the Europa Cup match last month, compared with the 6000+ Potters who descended on the Spanish city.
I suspect the quality of urban architecture and planning would improve rapidly if all students of the subject - like my dear cousin - were made to take a sandwich year in Stoke, Hull, Blackburn or any of the other despoiled and depressed cities which litter the country ('Come friendly bombs, and fall on Slough / It's not fit for humans now', as Betjeman wrote in a snobbishly unpleasant poem).
I give you in evidence, some shots of Hanley Bus Station (rest here) - Hanley's the principal shopping area in the Six Towns which make up Stoke-on-Trent. Someone had a go at gaiety… and failed miserably.
Quite pleased with this one - good strong lines
I used to eat here, when Modern Life is Rubbish persuaded me that greasy spoon cafés were romantic.
Could be worse: could be Detroit (warning: contains heartbreak), although that city has a certain grandeur in its ruins.
Uncanny: Fry and Laurie predict the future
For your convenience and amusement, two old Fry and Laurie sketches - one which envisages the privatisation of the police force, as leaked to the press on Saturday, the other taking It's A Wonderful Life to explore a world without Murdoch:
The police privatisation story is a shocker. I have to say that I don't particularly care whether a company or an in-house mechanic fixes cop cars very much - but the plans include detention, patrolling, intelligence work and investigations: and senior cops (no doubt looking forward to fat directorships) are very keen on this.
British policing has always been a fraught affair: in the Victorian era, the police were widely viewed as working-class traitors, to the extent that an anti-garotte collar formed part of the Met's uniform. Since then, the police have become deeply politicised: despite the individual efforts of the many decent community peace officers, large sections of the police have been devoted to sleeping, bugging and burgling their way round the protest movement without any justification, enthusiastically smashing the miners and generally acting as the armed wing of the Conservative Party, and maintaining corrupt links with the Murdoch press. Minor issues like pursuing rape cases or racist crimes seem to fade into insignificance compared with the greed and reactionary politics of the Association of Chief Police Officers.
If the police become privatised, the bad days of 70s corruption will return. Community support will disappear once policing becomes a profit-generating activity. I certainly won't feel under any compulsion to co-operate with the Corporate Cops. Without public consent, ordinary policing will become impossible. What officer will risk his life for the minimum wage and a corporate uniform? Honest police officers sworn to uphold justice, the law and democracy are essential to any society: making them employees of some offshore corporation will entirely break the social bonds which hold us together. The upper reaches of the police force already believe that their job is to serve the 1%: now they're looking forward being part of it.
Still, it makes the Police Commissioner election very easy: my vote will go to whichever candidate promises to kill this idea.
Luckily, popular culture provides another depiction of life under a privatised police force: Robocop, quite left-wing films which explore the social effects of privatisation of public services including policing. Here's a clip from Robocop 3:
Friday, 2 March 2012
Sshhh… screens have ears?
Do you worry about what you post online, Tweet, link to or Like? Perhaps we should - the Paul Chambers case should teach us that authorial intention and reader reception can be poles apart, with horrifying consequences.
More prosaically, people are talking a lot more about 'managing' your online reputation, as this post over at MMU's PR blog discusses (much of what follows is what I said in a comment there). If you're looking for a job - and perhaps applying for a university course, you should expect to be Googled by your prospective employer. We've had students complain that things they've posted on open websites for academic purposes have been used against them in selection processes. I've also advised students that they should take some simple steps to improve their credibility (an email address along the lines of 'sexybitch' prompted a few words about audiences).
I used to be quite careful myself: I don't use my real name, or that of The Hegemon, though since I've been named in the national press and many of my colleagues and students read Plashing Vole, the horse has rather bolted (I admit it: I'm am Michael Gove). If my name was really common, I'd perhaps be less careful, but as it's very distinctive and rare (there's a professor of medicine and a professor of nuclear physics out there with my name - which makes me optimistic about my promotion prospects), I decided to take up an alter ego. I've also toned down some of my more direct critiques of the institution - self-censorship to keep my job. But on the whole, I'm fairly independent, and I'm lucky enough to work in a sector which prides itself on employing loudly-opiniated oddballs. Left to myself in the private sector I'd soon starve down an alley.
Having a glamorous secret identity has some advantages: I can talk about situations in general rather than be seen as self-interested, for example, and it offers a degree of insulation. I can maintain a division between my professional life and my online commentary existence - but this is also a drawback. The MMU PR blog, for instance, and many others I read, are written by named individuals: in the world of REF and professional regard which acts as currency in education, I've separated my blogging and academic identities to some extent, reducing my 'impact' and professional credibility. My blogging and tweeting has led to some useful networking, occasional pieces in the national press and other opportunities, but if I was really driven to public engagement, I'd merge Vole and my meatspace identities.
That last word is the key one for me. Before postmodernism, we all thought that we were simple creatures: our names signalled a coherence and continuity of identity throughout our lives and activities. Modern theory rejects that. Instead, we're bundles of contradictory impulses and subject positions, in which names are ineffectual sticking plasters meant to reassure ourselves that we're the same person 'now' as 'then', at work and at home, internally and externally. The self is a 'narrative', and like all narratives, it has an author and multiple audiences. Remember Harold Wilson? The Labour leader smoked cigars in private but a pipe in public: semiotically, he understood their different meanings and constructed a public narrative (pipe = fatherly, trustworthy) at odds with his private inclinations (cigar = posh, which he wasn't, but he'd picked up the habit from somewhere and didn't want to stop).
Social media has exposed the truth of this like never before, revealed by the paranoia of those thoughtful enough to worry about their online presence. Our online existences are manifestations of our multiple roles. I don't talk about family and relationships online, for instance - a quick Google would present me as an isolated misanthrope, which is only one (major) strand of my personality. My Twitter timeline reveals a hilarious, sarcastic master of popular culture (well, one can hope), while revealing nothing of my serious work for charidee (but I don't like to talk about that). Plashing Vole is a construction which sometimes makes me seem more intellectual, more hard-working, angrier and more serious than my offline persona (lazy fat bloke waiting to be sacked). My letters to various newspapers are also performances: constructions of a leftwing academic seriousness which is part of a desire to remain within the expected paradigms of a lecturer (if you're interested in performance as the slippery core of identity, read Judith Butler's Gender Trouble: if you borrowed my copy, bring it back you bastard: I spent months carefully annotating that copy and don't want to do it all over again).
Aside from the philosophical fascination of online/offline identities, there's also a political or ideological tyranny waiting in the winds. The PR blog made the very reasonable point that employers are engaged in surveillance of applicants, and that we should be aware of this. IN practical terms, however, this is likely to be short-lived: if we all become paranoid enough, our online presence will reveal an entire population of teetotal, asexual, church-going bores, just like our CVs, thanks to our careful 'curation' of e-activity. We'll all be working so hard to weed out any sign of personality that we won't have any time for mischief. At which point employers will get wise to this and give up. The other practical problem is that we can only control what we post - we've little sway over what other people post, say about us or interpret what we say. Reputation management is a Sisyphean task.
More importantly, I worry that dread at the judgement of potential employers means internalising a disciplinary discourse which is unaccountable and ideologically loaded. If we spend every moment worrying about how some recruitment panel will interpret a sarcastic tweet or inebriated photo, we've given in to a hegemonic structure in which the perceived demands of 'business' outweigh everything else in our lives. In a better world, the opinion of Colin from Accounts on the subject of my taste in music, behaviour at parties or political beliefs would be entirely irrelevant. A decent employer should know that they're buying our labour, time and a degree of commitment, and not the whole person: whether you spend your weekends LARPing or wife-swapping in Wakefield (I assume the former leads to the latter int he fullness of time), should be a matter of supreme unimportance.
By accepting that a Colin in our heads should be allowed to judge us is to voluntarily submit to the judgement of an élite which shouldn't be given control over our rich and complex lives. I shouldn't have to care whether Colin 'gets' sarcasm or not. I shouldn't have to police my opinions based on the reaction of an authority figure who hasn't the time or skills to properly contextualise a throw-away line about a subject of which he knows little. I should be able to get drunk and (one day) urinate on Margaret Thatcher's grave without worrying about how some corporate suit might misinterpret a moment in my past.
If we unquestioningly internalise the discourses of corporate authority, are we free in any meaningful fashion?
Your thoughts?
(PS: this is what Media Studies is about).
More prosaically, people are talking a lot more about 'managing' your online reputation, as this post over at MMU's PR blog discusses (much of what follows is what I said in a comment there). If you're looking for a job - and perhaps applying for a university course, you should expect to be Googled by your prospective employer. We've had students complain that things they've posted on open websites for academic purposes have been used against them in selection processes. I've also advised students that they should take some simple steps to improve their credibility (an email address along the lines of 'sexybitch' prompted a few words about audiences).
I used to be quite careful myself: I don't use my real name, or that of The Hegemon, though since I've been named in the national press and many of my colleagues and students read Plashing Vole, the horse has rather bolted (I admit it: I'm am Michael Gove). If my name was really common, I'd perhaps be less careful, but as it's very distinctive and rare (there's a professor of medicine and a professor of nuclear physics out there with my name - which makes me optimistic about my promotion prospects), I decided to take up an alter ego. I've also toned down some of my more direct critiques of the institution - self-censorship to keep my job. But on the whole, I'm fairly independent, and I'm lucky enough to work in a sector which prides itself on employing loudly-opiniated oddballs. Left to myself in the private sector I'd soon starve down an alley.
Having a glamorous secret identity has some advantages: I can talk about situations in general rather than be seen as self-interested, for example, and it offers a degree of insulation. I can maintain a division between my professional life and my online commentary existence - but this is also a drawback. The MMU PR blog, for instance, and many others I read, are written by named individuals: in the world of REF and professional regard which acts as currency in education, I've separated my blogging and academic identities to some extent, reducing my 'impact' and professional credibility. My blogging and tweeting has led to some useful networking, occasional pieces in the national press and other opportunities, but if I was really driven to public engagement, I'd merge Vole and my meatspace identities.
That last word is the key one for me. Before postmodernism, we all thought that we were simple creatures: our names signalled a coherence and continuity of identity throughout our lives and activities. Modern theory rejects that. Instead, we're bundles of contradictory impulses and subject positions, in which names are ineffectual sticking plasters meant to reassure ourselves that we're the same person 'now' as 'then', at work and at home, internally and externally. The self is a 'narrative', and like all narratives, it has an author and multiple audiences. Remember Harold Wilson? The Labour leader smoked cigars in private but a pipe in public: semiotically, he understood their different meanings and constructed a public narrative (pipe = fatherly, trustworthy) at odds with his private inclinations (cigar = posh, which he wasn't, but he'd picked up the habit from somewhere and didn't want to stop).
Social media has exposed the truth of this like never before, revealed by the paranoia of those thoughtful enough to worry about their online presence. Our online existences are manifestations of our multiple roles. I don't talk about family and relationships online, for instance - a quick Google would present me as an isolated misanthrope, which is only one (major) strand of my personality. My Twitter timeline reveals a hilarious, sarcastic master of popular culture (well, one can hope), while revealing nothing of my serious work for charidee (but I don't like to talk about that). Plashing Vole is a construction which sometimes makes me seem more intellectual, more hard-working, angrier and more serious than my offline persona (lazy fat bloke waiting to be sacked). My letters to various newspapers are also performances: constructions of a leftwing academic seriousness which is part of a desire to remain within the expected paradigms of a lecturer (if you're interested in performance as the slippery core of identity, read Judith Butler's Gender Trouble: if you borrowed my copy, bring it back you bastard: I spent months carefully annotating that copy and don't want to do it all over again).
Aside from the philosophical fascination of online/offline identities, there's also a political or ideological tyranny waiting in the winds. The PR blog made the very reasonable point that employers are engaged in surveillance of applicants, and that we should be aware of this. IN practical terms, however, this is likely to be short-lived: if we all become paranoid enough, our online presence will reveal an entire population of teetotal, asexual, church-going bores, just like our CVs, thanks to our careful 'curation' of e-activity. We'll all be working so hard to weed out any sign of personality that we won't have any time for mischief. At which point employers will get wise to this and give up. The other practical problem is that we can only control what we post - we've little sway over what other people post, say about us or interpret what we say. Reputation management is a Sisyphean task.
More importantly, I worry that dread at the judgement of potential employers means internalising a disciplinary discourse which is unaccountable and ideologically loaded. If we spend every moment worrying about how some recruitment panel will interpret a sarcastic tweet or inebriated photo, we've given in to a hegemonic structure in which the perceived demands of 'business' outweigh everything else in our lives. In a better world, the opinion of Colin from Accounts on the subject of my taste in music, behaviour at parties or political beliefs would be entirely irrelevant. A decent employer should know that they're buying our labour, time and a degree of commitment, and not the whole person: whether you spend your weekends LARPing or wife-swapping in Wakefield (I assume the former leads to the latter int he fullness of time), should be a matter of supreme unimportance.
By accepting that a Colin in our heads should be allowed to judge us is to voluntarily submit to the judgement of an élite which shouldn't be given control over our rich and complex lives. I shouldn't have to care whether Colin 'gets' sarcasm or not. I shouldn't have to police my opinions based on the reaction of an authority figure who hasn't the time or skills to properly contextualise a throw-away line about a subject of which he knows little. I should be able to get drunk and (one day) urinate on Margaret Thatcher's grave without worrying about how some corporate suit might misinterpret a moment in my past.
If we unquestioningly internalise the discourses of corporate authority, are we free in any meaningful fashion?
Your thoughts?
(PS: this is what Media Studies is about).
Say hello to bonhomie
I'm unaccountably full of warm feelings towards my fellow humans today, a most unfamiliar sensation. Normal misanthropic service will, I hope, be restored soon.
Why so happy? Well, I took a group of students to Warwick Arts Centre last night, to see a stage adaptation of Vile Bodies, the Evelyn Waugh novel of aristocratic vacuity we're studying this semester.
The student production was rather good - despite a tight budget and and the lack of experience which comes from being young (damn their eyes), they handled a compressed narrative very well, particularly the change from superficiality to disaster in the second half of the novel.
I think my students enjoyed the play. I'm not sure how many had been to the theatre before, nor how many had read the novel yet, but they seemed to appreciate the trip (and had the grace to laugh when I pointed out that they still have to read the book). Lots of the novels' themes are particularly relevant in the era of phone-hacking and the Leveson Inquiry: the power of the press, our simultaneous love for and hatred of celebrities, the divide between the pointless aristocracy and the public which demands both to be entertained and be moralistic at the same time. It really is a novel for our times.
They're also an uproariously funny bunch - the gossip on the bus was hilarious, though I did have to develop selective, diplomatic deafness now and then. It was also a good reminder of how much student life has changed - so many of them juggle full-time study with work: in schools, in supermarkets, cafés and shops. I may have struggled for cash as a student, but I had such an easy life compared with them.
Finally - I never realised what a bunch of old lags my students are: seemingly expulsion from school is one of the entry requirements for The Hegemon!
Why so happy? Well, I took a group of students to Warwick Arts Centre last night, to see a stage adaptation of Vile Bodies, the Evelyn Waugh novel of aristocratic vacuity we're studying this semester.
The student production was rather good - despite a tight budget and and the lack of experience which comes from being young (damn their eyes), they handled a compressed narrative very well, particularly the change from superficiality to disaster in the second half of the novel.
I think my students enjoyed the play. I'm not sure how many had been to the theatre before, nor how many had read the novel yet, but they seemed to appreciate the trip (and had the grace to laugh when I pointed out that they still have to read the book). Lots of the novels' themes are particularly relevant in the era of phone-hacking and the Leveson Inquiry: the power of the press, our simultaneous love for and hatred of celebrities, the divide between the pointless aristocracy and the public which demands both to be entertained and be moralistic at the same time. It really is a novel for our times.
They're also an uproariously funny bunch - the gossip on the bus was hilarious, though I did have to develop selective, diplomatic deafness now and then. It was also a good reminder of how much student life has changed - so many of them juggle full-time study with work: in schools, in supermarkets, cafés and shops. I may have struggled for cash as a student, but I had such an easy life compared with them.
Finally - I never realised what a bunch of old lags my students are: seemingly expulsion from school is one of the entry requirements for The Hegemon!
Thursday, 1 March 2012
World Book Day News
It's both Dydd Dewi Sant / St. David's Day and World Book Day / Ddiwrnod y Llyfyr, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to point you in the direction of some interesting Welsh novels, in either language. I'll do poetry some other time, when I've got several weeks to list all the amazing Welsh poets. I've celebrated World Book Day. oddly, by not getting any books in the post at all, which is unheard of for me!
Joe Dunthorne, Submarine and Wild Abandon. I don't know if Dunthorne's Welsh, and I've not quite got to grips with the Dunthorne's version of Welshness (I'm wondering if there's a paper in it), but these two Bildungsromans are really good. Both follow confused, intelligent and quirky teenagers adrift in a sea of adult troubles as they try to navigate according to their own perceptions. Funny, very interesting narrative structures, very moving. Good novels make you see the world differently - Dunthorne and the other authors I mention do this beautifully.
One of my favourite authors of all is Wiliam Owen Roberts. He writes sinuous, experimental novels which slip between times, narrators and settings in a dialogical, polyphonic fashion. If you don't speak English, then you're limited to Pestilence, translated into ten languages after Y Pla revitalised Welsh literature with its Pynchonesque tale of colonial wars medieval and South-East Asian. Seriously, one of the best books I've ever read. In the middle of an awful lot of writers going on about industrial decline or domestic woes, Roberts takes the entire world and makes it his. The rest of the world desperately needs translations of his other novels, particularly his short stories on Thatcher's Britain, Hunangofiant.
Wiliam Owen Roberts from Wales Literature Exchange | Cyfn on Vimeo.
Kate Roberts: should have won a Nobel prize. Lived into her 90s, ran a printing firm, coped with a wayward husband, fought for Welsh-language education while writing short novels and stories which remind me of PJ Harvey's later albums: down to the bare rock. There are no wasted words in a Roberts story. Adjectives, descriptions, phatic conversations are all absent. Her characters are reduced to the essentials, much as they live their lives. They're gloomy in that twilit Protestant sense, but there's also a rock-ribbed determination about them which is admirable: there are no illusions in her work, just a clear-eyed assumption that endurance is all. Start with Traed Mewn Cyffion (translated as Feet in Chains) or for lighter material, Te Yn Y Grug (Tea in the Heather).
I'm a huge fan of Seren Books' New Stories from the Mabinogion series. The source material is deeply weird anyway, and they've got very hip authors to produce their own novelisations. There isn't a dud amongst them, but I'd start with Gwyneth Lewis's The Meat Tree, a postmodern SF version of the Blodeuwedd story (see also Alan Garner's terrifying The Owl Service), Horatio Clare's The Prince's Pen (tribal warfare plus jihad plus capitalism in decline) and Fflur Dafydd's The White Trail. Dafydd's work is generally brilliant: few people manage to combine a deep connection to Welsh cultural rootness with a lightness of literary touch.
Who else? I'm a massive fan of Chris Meredith's English poetry and novels: Sidereal Time slips easily between fantasy, dashed dreams and quotidian tedium beautifully, while Shifts lays bare the failure of stable masculinity as the South Wales valleys become post-industrial work-houses. Griffri is also a stunning novel. There's a new novel coming soon: The Book of Idiots, of which there's an extract in the current New Welsh Review.
And there's Niall Griffiths: the Welsh-Liverpudlian Irvine Welsh, interested in borders, subcultures and the lumpenproletariat - those marooned between cultures or living in a post-cultural twilight: Wreckage is a good place to start, and I love Grits too.
Amongst the established and dead authors, I will always rave about Gwyn Thomas's mordant, absurdist, utterly unique novels - particularly Sorry For The Sons, The Dark Philosophers and Where Did I Put My Pity?. I wrote my PhD partly on Sorrow, and reread it often. I also wrote about Lewis Jones's Cwmardy and We Live, two mining-and-communism novels which have a reputation amongst friends and supporters alike of being 1930s proletarian propaganda. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. Read them, come back to me and I'll tell you why. I intend to get into print in the near future to point out to Dai Smith and his mates exactly how WRONG they are.
Also highly recommended: Emyr Humphreys. Seemingly immortal novelist and poet in both languages. His classic is A Toy Epic and the Land of the Living series, but I'd recommend Outside the House of Baal and Old People Are A Problem for their conflation of subtle wit and profundity. I'd also point you in the direction of Raymond Williams of course, and Glyn Jones. I also rate Siân James' A Small Country, Menna Gallie's You're Welcome to Ulster, Gwyn Jones's work, Lloyd Jones, the incomparable psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, Owen Sheers to some extent, Jan Morris (huge soft spot for Our First Leader) and Catherine Merriman.
English people seem not to know much about Wales (I can see Wales from my office window, but one of my local students did not know it existed), and don't read enough literature in translation. So perhaps Welsh literature is a good place to start?
Joe Dunthorne, Submarine and Wild Abandon. I don't know if Dunthorne's Welsh, and I've not quite got to grips with the Dunthorne's version of Welshness (I'm wondering if there's a paper in it), but these two Bildungsromans are really good. Both follow confused, intelligent and quirky teenagers adrift in a sea of adult troubles as they try to navigate according to their own perceptions. Funny, very interesting narrative structures, very moving. Good novels make you see the world differently - Dunthorne and the other authors I mention do this beautifully.
One of my favourite authors of all is Wiliam Owen Roberts. He writes sinuous, experimental novels which slip between times, narrators and settings in a dialogical, polyphonic fashion. If you don't speak English, then you're limited to Pestilence, translated into ten languages after Y Pla revitalised Welsh literature with its Pynchonesque tale of colonial wars medieval and South-East Asian. Seriously, one of the best books I've ever read. In the middle of an awful lot of writers going on about industrial decline or domestic woes, Roberts takes the entire world and makes it his. The rest of the world desperately needs translations of his other novels, particularly his short stories on Thatcher's Britain, Hunangofiant.
Wiliam Owen Roberts from Wales Literature Exchange | Cyfn on Vimeo.
Kate Roberts: should have won a Nobel prize. Lived into her 90s, ran a printing firm, coped with a wayward husband, fought for Welsh-language education while writing short novels and stories which remind me of PJ Harvey's later albums: down to the bare rock. There are no wasted words in a Roberts story. Adjectives, descriptions, phatic conversations are all absent. Her characters are reduced to the essentials, much as they live their lives. They're gloomy in that twilit Protestant sense, but there's also a rock-ribbed determination about them which is admirable: there are no illusions in her work, just a clear-eyed assumption that endurance is all. Start with Traed Mewn Cyffion (translated as Feet in Chains) or for lighter material, Te Yn Y Grug (Tea in the Heather).
I'm a huge fan of Seren Books' New Stories from the Mabinogion series. The source material is deeply weird anyway, and they've got very hip authors to produce their own novelisations. There isn't a dud amongst them, but I'd start with Gwyneth Lewis's The Meat Tree, a postmodern SF version of the Blodeuwedd story (see also Alan Garner's terrifying The Owl Service), Horatio Clare's The Prince's Pen (tribal warfare plus jihad plus capitalism in decline) and Fflur Dafydd's The White Trail. Dafydd's work is generally brilliant: few people manage to combine a deep connection to Welsh cultural rootness with a lightness of literary touch.
Who else? I'm a massive fan of Chris Meredith's English poetry and novels: Sidereal Time slips easily between fantasy, dashed dreams and quotidian tedium beautifully, while Shifts lays bare the failure of stable masculinity as the South Wales valleys become post-industrial work-houses. Griffri is also a stunning novel. There's a new novel coming soon: The Book of Idiots, of which there's an extract in the current New Welsh Review.
And there's Niall Griffiths: the Welsh-Liverpudlian Irvine Welsh, interested in borders, subcultures and the lumpenproletariat - those marooned between cultures or living in a post-cultural twilight: Wreckage is a good place to start, and I love Grits too.
Amongst the established and dead authors, I will always rave about Gwyn Thomas's mordant, absurdist, utterly unique novels - particularly Sorry For The Sons, The Dark Philosophers and Where Did I Put My Pity?. I wrote my PhD partly on Sorrow, and reread it often. I also wrote about Lewis Jones's Cwmardy and We Live, two mining-and-communism novels which have a reputation amongst friends and supporters alike of being 1930s proletarian propaganda. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. Read them, come back to me and I'll tell you why. I intend to get into print in the near future to point out to Dai Smith and his mates exactly how WRONG they are.
Also highly recommended: Emyr Humphreys. Seemingly immortal novelist and poet in both languages. His classic is A Toy Epic and the Land of the Living series, but I'd recommend Outside the House of Baal and Old People Are A Problem for their conflation of subtle wit and profundity. I'd also point you in the direction of Raymond Williams of course, and Glyn Jones. I also rate Siân James' A Small Country, Menna Gallie's You're Welcome to Ulster, Gwyn Jones's work, Lloyd Jones, the incomparable psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, Owen Sheers to some extent, Jan Morris (huge soft spot for Our First Leader) and Catherine Merriman.
English people seem not to know much about Wales (I can see Wales from my office window, but one of my local students did not know it existed), and don't read enough literature in translation. So perhaps Welsh literature is a good place to start?
Basking
What a glorious sunny day it is - even my crusty rain-loving soul is slightly lifted. I've even been nice to the students who've come to see me, which doesn't happen very often.
All seems right with the world, despite managing to snap my bank card in half yesterday, preventing me from going fencing and buying food. The Leveson Inquiry rumbles on, exposing the Establishment for the venal, self-interested and self-regarding entity I knew it was, and I'm going to the theatre tonight with my final-year students, to see an adaptation of Vile Bodies. I must remember to point out that this isn't a substitute for reading the novel…
Currently listening to two female singer-songwriters head and shoulders above the crowd: the rather wondrous Nancy Elizabeth album Wrought Iron:
and Rose Elinor Dougall's Without Why:
All seems right with the world, despite managing to snap my bank card in half yesterday, preventing me from going fencing and buying food. The Leveson Inquiry rumbles on, exposing the Establishment for the venal, self-interested and self-regarding entity I knew it was, and I'm going to the theatre tonight with my final-year students, to see an adaptation of Vile Bodies. I must remember to point out that this isn't a substitute for reading the novel…
Currently listening to two female singer-songwriters head and shoulders above the crowd: the rather wondrous Nancy Elizabeth album Wrought Iron:
and Rose Elinor Dougall's Without Why:
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