b l o g o s

abstracting

The proposal deadlines for CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication) and ISHR (International Society for the History of Rhetoric) are within a week of each other, and they are coming up f a s t. My proposed panels just--just--came together. I'm going to propose brand new work for both of them, on animals in the history of rhetoric.

For CCCC, we are going to coalesce around past educational practices, and for ISHR, around performance and theater. For both, I'll likely be looking at ancient fable assignments, particularly the request that students write in the "voices" of animals. My preliminary research question is: what's that about?

But hopefully that question will be refined as I work.

post-swarm

I must say the whole conference is a blur at this point, except for the three day routine that went exactly like this: up ass early; coffee shop for wireless access; shower and oatmeal back at the apartment; travel to conference by whatever means; a jumble of panels and meetings and one-on-one appointments, followed swiftly and noisily by a glut of parties, so many sharply-dressed bodies crammed into windowless rooms. Highlights, for me, included hanging with roomie Blake, smashing performances by my graduate students, a seven-mile saturday morning bike trek from boystown to the chicago hilton, (relatedly) a  presentation on mysticism delivered from the midst of an amazing endorphin high, and night-time galavanting with the beautiful and brilliant Queens of NCA.

swarm theory

I'm headed off to NCA, where I will be thinking about this piece in today's Science Times a good deal.

roundup: classics blogs

When I checked blogos's stats this morning and noticed that my recent post on the Timaeus conference has already made a round or two on email, I thought to myself "yah, blogging and the classics probably don't mix."

And while lots of scholars who study the ancient world probably think blogs are silly, some of their own still do it. Maybe my search engines failed me, but here's what I came up with, and some are a little, ahem, out of date. If you know of other classics blogs, leave em in the comments.

Here's the sampler:

rogue classicism (the only one I'd known before my search)

campus mawrtius

greek geek

philog

roman times

ancient world blog

ellopos blog

local conference blogging: Plato's Timaeus Today

1. How did all these scholars--all of them so marvelous and from so far away!--make it to the Plato's Timaeus Today conference here in Urbana, Illinois? The UK is very well represented (see #3).

2. Did Plato wear a ponytail? Because the look among Platonists is definitely full beard with ponytail and glasses. 

3. So far this conference wins the award for best readers. Being in the audience is a little like listening to an audiobook narrated by an English actor: Such intonation! Such perfect cadence! The arguments are actually followable this way. And the Q&A sessions are a little like British Parliament, if members of the british parliament based every question on their Oxford editions of the Timaeus.

4. The conference is so perfectly organized. Every session starts at the precise moment listed in the program. Every paper runs exactly 28 minutes. I would think it's a little creepy, except the whole conference is devoted to Plato's thoughts on the order of the kosmos.

5. I'm keeping a tally of the number of times rhetoric gets mentioned. This morning's total is one. But it wasn't used disparagingly (hooray).

heaven, i'm in heaven.

OK, I'm actually in New York. But damn, after a trip to Whole Foods and a delicious Ethiopian dinner, the difference seems negligable.

'tis the week before break

Tomorrow marks the start the week before break, which means I have an exam to write and a bunch of classes to prep and a 4Cs paper to finish, among other things. BUT it also means the weather is much improved over the last week and that everyone (except exam-crunched students) is in a pretty good mood because an end a breather is nigh.

woo hoo!

I am so pleased to announce that at long last, Chief Illiniwek is being retired.

I would say more, but I need to return to the New Materialisms conference on campus: Jane Bennett and Rey Chow are talking as I type! And Brenda Farnell, who has been a key campus leader on the issue of the Chief is presenting later on.

Materiality indeed!

post mla

When I've been away from home a lot, stopping in only to do a load of laundry, re-pack, and arrange for dogsitting, I start to miss cooking in our kitchen. Having returned home smoothly and safely on Friday and having gotten my first good night's rest in what seems like weeks or maybe months, I woke up yesterday knowing exactly what I needed: to make a meal. We were all out of food except for pantry items, a fresh pear left behind by K, the awesome dogsitter, and frozen meat that I set out to thaw. Early in the morning I headed out to buy the rest: two kinds of flour, baby romaine lettuce, and wine. I spent the morning peeking in at the rising dough, and then assembled a lasagna and stuck it in the fridge.

Adding to the pleasure was the super clean kitchen courtesy of K, and the new super cool knife set John and I bought ourselves in lieu of a present exchange. I used it to slice up K's pear for my salad (K: I didn't think it would outlast your NY trip to Chi-town). This all meant that only an hour after his 30 hour train ride, John was able to slice up some hot homemade bread. And apparently the new bread knife works really, really well.

Tonight, it's John's turn: the New Year's menu includes his ever-perfect oven roasted chicken, oven fries (with some sweet potato fries mixed in), brussel sprouts, and another loaf of homemade bread. It is damn good to be home.

whirling the mla wind

I've enjoyed this year's mla, mostly because John got us a hotel room over near Independence Park and off the path of beating. The walks to and fro are doable and yet enough to emphasize the distance, and the restaurants in this neighborhood are good and plenty.

As always, too, the fun happens in the times between stuff (though I actually found the stuff itself fun this year). And aside from prearranged dinner with Z and N and drinks with Flavia--I still can't believe we got yelled at for taking up bar space because I was drinking my vodka too slowly!--everything else happened in an extended game of MLA pinball. On Thursday, I bounced in to Jenny in the women's room, and then Friday, it was Collin (praise be to his new cell phone), and then back to John for some lunch slices followed by a foot-resting lobby recharge with Spencer. Went to the Penn State reception with Matt, a colleague who has been away in Ithaca this year. There I was thrilled to catch up with Jeff, one of my dearest, most highlarious grad school friends, to run into Jenny again, this time with Rice and another happy surprise: DDD.

And this morning I have time for a loooong, good workout in what has to be the nicest hotel fitness center I can recall (and I have worked out in a number of these). Then Z is going to pop by for a quick lunch and give me a ride to the airport. Whatta guy.