How Dante Can Save Your Life

Last night, there was a guest speaker at my institution—Rod Dreher, a conservative journalist. This time around he is speaking in support of his recently published How Dante Can Save Your Life. I am always glad to attend and support an event devoted to a great poem.

As it turns out, most of his talk was autobiographical—focusing on how he, a non-specialist, non-academic, non-fiction reader, found a way out of his own dark wood by reading a poem he never expected to enjoy.

As his talk went on, his descriptions of depression resonated with me. And then he talked about being at his father’s death bed (a mere month ago). It was deeply moving, and if you were listening you could hear him making the implicit argument that these old poems (the things people like me work so hard to preserve and teach) can have a value to any reader ready to approach them.

That kind of advice is the best advice we humanists can give to a public adrift.

I also wept. I miss my dear Mother in Law.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 54

From today’s feedback from my English 250 class, where I did my usual bit on Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier:

I really enjoyed this story because the way you dumbed it down, essentially enough for us all to understand the most important parts.

Gee. I can see it now on my updated resume:

“job skills: dumbing it down"

We have a new policy!

my institution has gotten with the times and promulgated an impossibly broad Sexual Abuse/Dating Violence/Badthink policy, and has mandated formal training for all faculty—no exceptions.

I read the document. In a 60 page document, this is the only mention of Due Process, which is never explicitly defined:

the “may” is the weasel-word that means, “tough luck, suckers.” And you know this because they never spell out what they mean beyond this (though they go into great detail about what the complainant can expect).

I eagerly await the lawsuits.

Professional Check-up

so, ten years in, how am I doing?

actually, it’s more like sixteen years.

it’s impossible, I guess, to spend a decade and more doing things a certain way without falling into certain patterns, i.e., ruts--

I have no pedagogical method except going in and doing what I do. I wave my arms and yell, enthusing about a set of things in what I hope is an intelligent manner. I try to be encouraging and yet also rigorous. It requires a huge amount of energy and effort. If I ever get to where I cannot stride around and make jokes, etc., I’m not going to do well.

I try to be welcoming and accessible to my students without inviting the familiarity that ends in contempt.

As I get older and they get younger, I have to try even harder to keep my own opinions and general curmudgeonliness from getting in the way. For instance, I see young men in particular for whom I feel some pity . . . I want them to embrace my own silly & archaic brand of Roman/Ben Jonsonesque stoicism . . . even as I know that I’ve always been that way and can hardly expect others to do the same.

I do have the conviction that studying literature is about filling your brain with “stuff,” and the only way to be a learned person is to read everything you can. I do believe that I’m not teaching to shape anyone ideologically, but I am hoping to convince them that the opportunity of free will and choice is a blessing and a burden, one not to be abandoned or ignored.

I read an article by Cary Saul Morson and commented on it earlier this year . . . and in it he asserts that he reads to his classes from their selections precisely because by doing so he can model an intelligent reader’s “voicing” of the parts. I have to admit that, given the examples I had in grad school from Professors S., and G., and especially B., I agree. It’s what I do . . . I have been gently mocked for using different voices while I read, and yet, I think it helps them. They are so uncomfortable reading stuff like this.

The students here like me. I am comfortable in front of the classroom and have the reputation of a tough but fair and inspiring instructor.

This is year eleven. I fear the rut.

Um, I'm taking the Bartleby option

In today’s inbox:

Faculty/Staff Title IX Training

Sexual Misconduct, Relationship Violence, and Stalking Policy and Procedure – REQUIRED TRAINING

Please choose one of the following sessions to attend:

Monday, September 21, 11:00 – 11:45 a.m.
Monday, September 21, 2:00 – 2:45 p.m.
Tuesday, September 22, 10:00 – 10:45 a.m.
Tuesday, September 22, 2:00 – 2:45 p.m.
All sessions will be held in Watkins Auditorium in the University Center.

Who is required to attend?
Training is required for all Faculty, Exempt Staff, Non-Exempt Staff who supervise, Graduate Teaching Assistants, Supervisors, GAs/Others serving as Academic Advisors. Training will fully explain the Sexual Misconduct, Relationship Violence, and Stalking Policy and Procedure and provide clarification of your responsibilities as a Mandatory Reporter.

Trainer information: Katie Koestner with Campus Outreach Services - Katie is a national expert and has been a leader in the movement to end sexual violence since she took her own solo stand as the first survivor of date rape to speak out nationally at age 18. Subsequently, she has appeared on nearly 50 national television programs and spoken at more than 3000 college and school campuses. She assisted the U.S. Department of Education in developing and providing programs to women in high-risk communities. Her testimony on Capitol Hill was instrumental in the passage of federal student safety legislation.
Two team members from Campus Outreach Services will assist with the trainings.

Oh boy! National Expert! First Survivor! Television Programs! Testimony on Capitol Hill! Team Members to Assist!

I’m sure this is a lucrative business for Campus Outreach Services, and I’m happy for Ms. Koestner, but I wonder why we need an outside consultant to come read powerpoint slides to us. I wonder why we need to pay whatever is required to have Ms. Koestner come read powerpoint slides to us. I wonder why faculty cannot be trusted to read a document for themselves, seeing as they are professionals in knowledge fields, after all.

I will believe it’s a financial crisis when the people telling me it’s a financial crisis act like it’s a financial crisis.

And yes, I know what this is. It is 100% CYA. Calling it a “Training” is a stretch for even the most credulous. I just wish they would be honest about what is actually happening here: they have to demonstrate that they have made everyone attend a training so that lawyers etc. don’t get involved. Or any more involved.

Bonus: will the utterly bogus “1 in 5” statistic get trotted out? You bet. How soon? I’m thinking within the first 3 minutes.

Seriously taking the Bartleby option.