Diss Update

Unfortunately, the dissertation has hit a surmountable snag. What remains to be seen is whether the snag can be cleared by date #1 or date #2. Hopefully date #1, but we'll see.

In other news, writing's going well on other projects. One, a fantasy setting, is "finished" and up for sale at lulu.com (I have no aspirations for publishing it traditionally or professionally). Another, a SF setting, is nearly through the handwrite stage, just 1.5 pages left there. And a third, SF/F story, is something I started over a year ago, but have been re-inspired on, so we'll see where that goes.

Disturbing Findings

I've got to say, I agree with large sections of this NYTimes article and the book's author.

I think her criticism of colleges and universities is a bit unfair, such as her claim that "ponderous musings on rock music and pop culture courses on everything from sitcoms to fat [. . .] trivialize college-level learning." Given the influence of music and pop culture on society, they are perfect subjects for sociological, psychological, and cultural studies work. Then there is the propensity for literary references throughout the rock genre - from Led Zepplin's references to Tolkien ("Ramble On" and "Battle of Evermore") to The Police's references to The Odyssey and Lolita to Blue Oyster Cult's references to Michael Moorcock's fiction.

However, for the most part, her findings are rather disturbing, especially the overheard conversation:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

New Adage

After six years at a major state university, and two university presidential administrations, I've adapted an old adage:

"Those who can, teach. Those who can't, administrate."

Maybe I've just biased because I had such a good experience at a small school as an undergrad. There, the college president could be seen walking around campus alone or in the company of students on a regular basis, held celebratory gatherings for seniors, advised two senior theses in his academic area every year (by choice), and made the best attempt he could to know every student by name (all 800-1000 of us). Here, the university president goes nowhere unless (s)he (both of them) is surrounded by a bevy of fellow administrators, avoids students at all costs, hasn't been in a classroom or other teaching situation in decades, and the current one recently referred to students as "tuition bearing units."

New Academic/Fan Journal

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC)
(http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) is a Gold Open Access
international peer-reviewed journal published by the Organization for
Transformative Works (http://www.transformativeworks.org/) edited by
Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson.

TWC publishes articles about popular media, fan communities, and
transformative works, broadly conceived. We invite papers on all
related topics, including but not limited to fan fiction, fan vids,
mashups, machinima, film, TV, anime, comic books, video games, and any
and all aspects of the communities of practice that surround them.
TWC's aim is twofold: to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes
fan-related topics, and to promote dialogue between the academic
community and the fan community.

We encourage innovative works that situate these topics within
contemporary culture via a variety of critical approaches, including
but not limited to feminism, queer theory, critical race studies,
political economy, ethnography, reception theory, literary criticism,
film studies, and media studies. We also encourage authors to consider
writing personal essays integrated with scholarship, hypertext
articles, or other forms that embrace the technical possibilities of
the Web and test the limits of the genre of academic writing. TWC
copyrights under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0
Unported License.

Theory accepts blind peer-reviewed essays that are often
interdisciplinary, with a conceptual focus and a theoretical frame
that offers expansive interventions in the field of fan studies
(5,000-8,000 words).

Praxis analyzes the particular, in contrast to Theory's broader
vantage. Essays are blind peer reviewed and may apply a specific
theory to a formation or artifact; explicate fan practice; perform a
detailed reading of a specific text; or otherwise relate
transformative phenomena to social, literary, technological, and/or
historical frameworks (4,000-7,000 words).

Symposium is a section of editorially reviewed concise, thematically
contained short essays that provide insight into current developments
and debates surrounding any topic related to fandom or transformative
media and cultures (1,500-2,500 words).

Reviews offer critical summaries of items of interest in the fields of
fan and media studies, including books, new journals, and Web sites.
Reviews incorporate a description of the item's content, an assessment
of its likely audience, and an evaluation of its importance in a
larger context (1,500–2,500 words). Review submissions undergo
editorial review; submit inquiries first to
review@transformativeworks.org.

TWC has rolling submissions. Contributors should submit online through
the Web site (http://journal.transformativeworks.org). Inquiries may
be sent to the editors (editor@transformativeworks.org).

The call for papers is available as a .pdf download sized for U.S.
Letter
(http://journal.transformativeworks.org/docs/twc-flyer-US-letter.pdf)
or European A4
(http://journal.transformativeworks.org/docs/twc-flyer-A4.pdf).
Please feel free to link, download, print, distribute, or post.

And Once Again . . .

. . . we see the conservative party of "less government, fewer taxes, and less spending" at work:

GWB's Record Breaking Large National Budget

See the post below regarding spending, national debt, and liberal v. conservative presidential administrations. Amazingly, Dubya manages to put together a record breaking budget while cutting funding to a host of public services (of course, he pumps funding into failed/mismanaged programs like "All Children Left Behind" and Homeland Security).

Interesting Science News

Just some interesting news in the realm of science and technology:

Dark, Dark Nanotechnology

Even if they didn't mention what effect this discovery will have on the goth and nihilist subcultures. :)