Historian
Or, The South May Rise Again, But Irony Is Dead, Dead, Dead
Mark Frauenfelder, “South Carolina Now Requires ‘Subversives’ to Register”, BoingBoing, 8 February 2010.
The cost is five dollars.
I do believe that the good people of South Carolina owe themselves something to the tune of $3.5 million, at least if they’re going to be honest about this.
Here’s the relevant section of the legal code.
I got some exciting news today in my department mailbox (click pic for larger size):
But that’s not all!
I won’t keep you in suspense — I won all three!
It also came with all this:
(an Iwo Jima decal, eagle pin, “Old Glory Mix” wildflower seeds, a liberty bell coin (with ‘made in China’ plastic carrying case), Presidents of the USA / Constitution bookmark, U.S. flag decal, membership card and declaration of membership)
I’ve been a grad student for almost 5 years, and a blogger for almost one, and look at all the cool stuff I get in the mail.
Just look at it.
Hope you’ve enjoyed these postings. Many more to come.
SEK’s got a fantastic new post up at Acephalous about a particular technique he uses to teach his student’s how to imitate an academic style of writing. Or, as he puts it “a very long post about teaching non-humanities majors how to fake like they know what they’re talking about.”
Anyone interested in writing, teaching writing, or teaching non-humanities majors would do well to read the piece.
Though he’s framed it as a retention technique — for those science majors who after 2 years of problem sets and Scantrons get to their senior year research papers with no clue how to write in an academic voice — but I think it’s worth reading for the description of his pedagogy within which this technique is embedded, too. I especially like the way he gets the students on the side of good writing and argument by showing them how to take down terrible stuff.
Go read!
Scott Eric Kaufman, “How to Bootstrap Student Diction,” Acephalous, 5 February 2010
Image cite: the trial, write,” Flickr, CC License
Some links to take you through the weekend:
Kate T., “NARA calls for public comments on how it can be more ‘open’,” ArchivesNext
The U.S. government’s main record keeping body wants input on their “Open Government Plan,” a transparency initiative. Due by March 19th. Official press release.
Priyah Chhaya, “Historian 2.0: Find the Past Through Social Media,” PreservationNation
Social media habitus of an historian. Gratifying to know that others are online as much as me.
Steven Vider, “The Divided States #1: Pennsylvania Mania!” The Lazy Scholar
In the spirit of the WPA guidebooks and Sufjan Stevens, the Lazy Scholar is going state by state to identify digital archives that express the character of that state. He’s up to two states so far.
Jonathan Stray,”Jürgen Habermas not on Twitter,” Information, Culture, and Belief
Self-explanatory. Stray also has smart things to say about the internet and journalism:
I think a news organization has to do original reporting in some form to be worthy of the name. To develop authority and convince its audience to listen, it probably has to let its reporters expertise shine through. What newsrooms don’t seem to understand yet (and Google does) is that filtering is just as useful, if not more so. Running or rewriting wire copy does serve to inform the reader, but linking is far more efficient for the newsroom and far more useful to the reader. Any organization that wants readers to come to its site first can ill afford to pretend that the reader doesn’t want the rest of the web too.
Massimo Pigliucci, “Podcast Teaser: Can History Be a Science?, RationallySpeaking.org
Aaaaargh. argh argh argh. Note that it doesn’t occur to them to actually talk to an historian, instead of a Hari Seldon wannabe. That would only be, like, rational. I mean, it’s not like we’ve thought about this problem or anything. Maybe they will in the podcast itself, we’ll see. So far, I’m not impressed.
And a couple of smart ProfHacker posts:
Erin E. Templeton, Silence is Golden,” ProfHacker
Great advice on how to get students to talk in seminars (or how to deal with their silence constructively).
Billie Hara, “Reflexive Pedagogy,”ProfHacker
A smart, short piece on how to lead students to make meaning out of what they have learned, to own their educations. I especially liked the suggestions for how to improve end-of-semester evals so that they help students, too.
And to finish things off, some NPR Fanfic (no, seriously):
Nestra, “Wait Wait Don’t Eat Me,” Archive of Our Own
Image cite: Flickrohit,Rivets,” Flickr, CC License
I can think of no better use of resources than to mess with the people of the future.
From the Believer:
This explains menhirs and moai better than anything else, I think; though I may be the only historian who attributes major monuments to whimsy and irony. h/t
Image Cite: flow14, “Carhenge @ Sunset,” Flickr, CC License
Dael A. Norwood 