Entries from mistersquid: a digital fiction tagged with 'academia'

Hooked Through the Eye

I feel like a musky with all the fight gone out of him.»Jackson, Gordon. “Billy’s Girl.” Robert Shapard Ed. Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories. 1st ed. Salt Lake City: G.M. Smith, 1986: 180.« Last night I told one of...

Reassessing The Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski ENTRYURL: http://www.metafilter.com/87913/The-Year-in-Dude-Studies#2883496 viaName: viaURL: TIME: 23:06:58 //--> Even having seen the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski three or four times, I really did not like the film too much. I was annoyed by Lebowski’s unconsidered and Hollywoodified...

The Decline of the English Department

Early in his analysis of The Decline of the English Department, William Chace asserts that what is at the root of the decline is the failure of departments of English across the country to champion, with passion, the books...

Mistersquid’s Web-Based Photo Album

In an Age Before Web-Based Student Information Services In 1998, a faculty at the University of Virginia English Department ran into a problem many academics will recognize. A former student of his had asked him for a recommendation. The...

Some Thoughts Regarding the Creation of Text-to-Speech Audiobooks Using Consumer-Grade Software, or One Possible Outcome for Academic Professionalism as a Result of Fully Digitzed Text

Codex Books, Audiobooks, and Assistive Devices: A Tale of Near Misses The last book I checked out of Alden Library while still a faculty at Ohio University was Clay Shirky’s 2008 Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without...

Reorganizing This Movable Type Blog: Mistersquid Refreshed

Before returning to California after a 17-year adventure in the world of higher education (one that may not quite be done done), I restructured the way I was developing material for this blog. That restructuring was born of a...

Signify On This: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Arrested for Disorderly Conduct

The New York Times reports that Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested for disorderly conduct outside his own home. Judging from the copy of the AP report, I’m guessing that the police responded to Gates’s indignation with calculated stupidity....

Who I Thought I Was

This morning I dreamt I was going to a workshop about the use of technology in academic research. I was with people who reminded me of my colleagues and coworkers in the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia....

Friction and Its Discontents

Those of you who know me in real life probably aren’t surprised by my blogging hiatus. Those of you who know probaby aren’t either. I suppose I’m the only one who’s surprised. In the last year (has it been that...

Boycott Thomson Research

My work currently depends upon Thomson Research’s EndNote. However, because Thomson is currently in the process of suing George Mason University for developing open-source Zotero, I will begin the process of looking for a replacement for EndNote. I recommend all...

Writer

This morning, I finished reading "Those Who Write, Teach” by David Gessner, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, who discusses the effect of academic teaching (Creative Writing) on writers. In addition to being an excellent read,...

Resurface

The two areas which have absorbed my attentions for the last two months (outside the shambles that passes for my personal life) has been my teaching and my writing. This entry is about the writing part of my life, research...

Someone's Breathing

I know the identity of Pseudonymous Graduate Student.1 I also believe, though I'm not sure, that P.G.O.A.T. and nth Year are her, too. I sent Pseudonymous Graduate Student the following email:Dear Pseudonymous Graduate StudentMs. [. . .]:After connecting your writing...

Damned spot

Three graduate students in philosophy have begun an anonymous blog where they have found the courage to decry the heartache that is their job market. There are a thousand things I'd like to cover regarding the protocol of the philosophy...

Pleasures and Joys

One of the pleasures of being an academic (as distinct from an intellectual or smart person, etc.) is occasionally gathering with colleagues for an evening of conviviality and camaraderie.December is a season of stress for many US academics. The weather...

Blaming Virginia

There are a thousand things to say about the tragedy that transpired in Blacksburg, Virginia, on 16 April 2007, and many people more eloquent and thoughtful than me are saying them. John Derbyshire, however, is not one of them.1The scenario...

Tommy Sweatshop

At my undergraduate alma mater, USC, the Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE) staged a knit-in on the steps of the Pertusati University Bookstore. Lori White, associate vice president for Student Affairs, asked the students to relocate to Hahn plaza...

Have you seen my day?

I should call the police because I think someone has stolen my day. I did not misplace it nor did I leave it unlocked. At about a quarter to one when I went to sleep this morning, I had...

Ain't This The Life?

On 12 April, CNN's Money Magazine published a hoot of an article ranking “The Best Jobs in America” in terms of “stress level, flexibility in work environment and hours, creativity, and ease of entry and advancement in the field.”...

Alas, Poor Horatio

Keeping the tradition of irritating my colleagues for their (and my) outmoded love of literature (and apropos of my somewhat insensitive interruption of  one of my colleague’s  accessing non-print media yesterday), I would like you to consider  an article...

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