in which I cannot resist weighing in

Three idle thoughts, in response to the latest gubernatorial pronouncement about how universities are doing everything wrong:

1) If I had to pick a graduate of Misnomer U to hire for a job of an unspecified nature, and if I had to do this without knowing anything at all about the prospective candidates except their majors, my first pick would be ... Women's Studies. For real. It's not a popular major; the few students it does attract tend to be much brighter and more dedicated than average; and almost all of them have served an internship with Grande Dame Colleague, who teaches them all kinds of useful skills, like grant writing and archival research and conducting interviews and transcribing oral histories, as well as general responsibility and professionalism. I don't mean to suggest that this is true of all gender studies programs everywhere, but in general, it's a grave mistake to assume that you can tell from the name of a program whether it teaches students marketable skills.

2) Last time I looked, math WAS a liberal art. (OK, it's possible that the last time I looked might have been sometime in the fifteenth century, but whatever.) Now, I think all the stuff they do over in the math and science department is pretty darn awesome. But much of it is not inherently any more practical than the things we do in humanities. (Nor should it be, since the university is supposed to be a space where knowledge is valued for its own sake, and where people have the freedom to study things because they're cool and interesting.)

3) People have been coming to universities to study philosophy for a lot longer than they've been coming to study business or engineering. It takes a certain amount of cognitive dissonance to cast yourself as a defender of traditional institutions and social values AND take potshots at the very programs and ideals which are, in fact, integral to the traditional mission of a university. (But then, one of the things I find puzzling about conservatives is that they don't actually seem to be interested in conserving things, most of the time.)

travelogue, part 4

It is the first day of classes, and it is rainy and unpleasant and threatening to turn the entire world into a big lake, so I thought I would post some pictures of sunny places. Besides, I never did finish the summer travel series.

So, after a long night on the bus, I came to Istanbul:

(Note the double-tiered bridge, by the way: fish are caught from the top and eaten on the bottom.) The ferries go up and down the Bosporus, back and forth between Europe and Asia; at the end of the line you come to this little village, where there is a castle you can climb up to and some more places to eat fish:

The classic touristy shot of the Hagia Sofia:

And an early-evening one, taken from the rooftop at the hostel:

After a couple of long days on trains and buses (and a quick dip in the Black Sea), I came to Sofia, Bulgaria. I don't actually have a lot of pictures of Sofia, but here is a nice one of Rila Monastery, a couple of hours away.

Frescoes:

And, back in Greece, I went to visit some more monasteries with an even more impressive setting.

(There was a helpful sign saying "Ladies in sleeveless dresses, slacks, or pantaloons will not be admitted." Hiking up the pinnacles in a long skirt is perhaps not ideal, although it was OK until I decided to take a shortcut down, which turned out not to lead much of anywhere except into a patch of blackberry bushes.)

So, finally, I went back to Athens and took a day-trip out to a temple, only to find that someone from the Brit Lit survey had been there before me. Can you spot him?

Whoo. Or: why I haven't been around much lately

So, yeah. This chasing-tenure thing. It feels a bit like chasing one's tail, or what I imagine that would feel like if I actually had a tail.

This has been, pretty much, the Semester from Hell (which I knew was going to be the case going in, and one of the reasons why I went to Europe for six weeks this summer was that I wanted to fortify myself). I hadn't anticipated being appointed to a search committee, nor being contacted by a journal out of the blue to review a book (which was gratifying, especially since the book turned out to cite both of my published articles, so I wasn't about to say no). But pretty much everything else was predictable, and stuff that I voluntarily let myself in for, including the other book review, the QEP committee, revisions to two different essays for two different edited collections, chairing a panel at the annual writers' conference, interviews for prospective honors students, thirteen credits' worth of teaching, three honors thesis committees, etc., etc., etc.)

I think I really need to learn how to start saying no to things, but I find it really hard to decline things that might involve a) free books; b) money; or c) tenure. (Actually, I'm still close enough to grad school that I'm a sucker for free food. Pathetic.)

The teaching gods are merciful, and sent me mostly good classes. (Even in freaking Basic. I had a grand total of eight students, all of whom came to class on time, turned all the assignments in, mostly followed directions, and are all, accordingly, going to pass the class. If you have never taught Basic Comp, you have no idea how much of a miracle this is. Maybe they are actually teaching them something useful in the Academic Success Center or whatever it's called this year, or maybe I just got insanely lucky.)

Whew. Last class taught yesterday; second book review sent off today; time to raise a glass and chill out for a bit.

... Oh yeah. Grading.

ENOUGH with the tragedy!

Just once, I want Hamlet to live. Maybe he could run away with the players and spend the rest of his life writing plays in imitation of Seneca, because that is clearly what he really wants to do. Or he could go back to Wittenburg before Horatio has a chance to tell him about the ghost, and end his days as a professor. Or the pirates could refuse to let him go, and Claudius could refuse to ransom him, leaving him with no choice but to pursue a career on the high seas. Or the mountebank who sold Laertes the poison could turn out to be Cornelius from Cymbeline, so everybody lives, and Hamlet gets to be an awesomely eccentric philosopher-king, with Horatio to save his neck every time he gets into trouble. There could be a whole sitcom about King Hamlet. I'd totally watch it.

Just once, I want Edmund to have his big moment of redemption while there is still time for it to do some good. I like Edmund, dammit. I like Cordelia too.

Just once, I want Othello and Desdemona to have a pleasant and wholly uneventful honeymoon in Cyprus, and Emilia to get a divorce.

Just once, I want Antony's last throw of the dice to succeed, so he and Cleopatra can be emperor and empress of Rome. They could introduce the Romans to heavy drinking, long lazy fishing expeditions, and cross-dressed revelry, and Charmian and Iras could come with them, because Charmian and Iras would totally enjoy Rome. Enobarbus could show them around and flirt with them both at once. It would be great fun.

(Coriolanus, however, can totally die, since he's a jerk anyway and he doesn't take anyone else down with him. Besides, this semester is the first time I've taught this play, so I'm not sick of it yet.)

Can you tell this is SO not my genre? Yeah. The Late Shakespeare class is a bit of a trial.

Two more weeks 'til The Winter's Tale...

WTF Hamlet

ACT ONE

The Soldiers: Hey, did you hear about the ghost?
Horatio: I am a university man. I don't believe in ghosts.
Ghost appears.
Horatio: WTF?
Marcellus: Look, cannon!
Horatio: I can tell you all about that. [Horatio explains for forty lines all about Fortinbras, who is obviously going to be a major character in this narrative.]
Ghost reappears
Horatio: WTF?
Marcellus: I hear ghosts don't walk at Advent. Just sayin'.

Claudius: Hi, everyone. I've just married my sister-in-law. I'm sure you'll all agree that under the circumstances, it was a perfectly obvious thing to do. Also, I took care of the Fortinbras problem. So much for him.
The Danish Court: WTF?
All exit. Hamlet is left alone.
Hamlet: I can't believe Mom married that jerk. WTF?
Enter Horatio.
Hamlet: Hey, what are you doing here?
Horatio: I came for the funeral.
Hamlet: You're a little late, but luckily you're just in time for the wedding. Hey, I think I see my Dad.
Horatio: WTF?!?!?
Hamlet: In my mind's eye.
Horatio: Oh. Speaking of your dad, his ghost has been walking the ramparts.
Hamlet: WTF?

Polonius: Ophelia, you need to break up with Hamlet.
Ophelia: OK, Dad.

Ghost: Your uncle murdered me and married your mother. You need to avenge me.
Hamlet: OK. I shall run around and pretend to be crazy!
Horatio, Marcellus, and the Ghost: WTF?


ACT TWO

Polonius: Reynaldo, go to Paris and spy on my son. I shall explain how at great length, just so everyone will know what a good spymaster I am.
Ophelia: I'm very frightened. Prince Hamlet is acting weird. I think he's gone crazy.
Polonius: Have you given him any hard words of late?
Ophelia: No, I only broke up with him.
Polonius: Well, WTF did you do that for?

Claudius: I talked Fortinbras into invading Poland instead. This is an excellent plan, because people who invade Poland always stop with Poland. They never go on to invade Denmark later.
Gertrude: Hamlet is acting pretty weird lately.
Polonius: I know why! He's in love with my daughter.
Gertrude: It may be, very like.
Hamlet: Hi there, Mr. Fishmonger!
Polonius: WTF?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: Let's explain all about the war of the theaters, since nobody goes to see plays any more if they don't have any stuff about the war of the theaters in them.
Enter Actors
Hamlet: Why don't you recite a speech? Maybe a really long one about Hecuba! On second thought, maybe I will recite a really long speech about Hecuba. On third thought ... you do it.
Actors: WTF?


ACT THREE

Polonius: Ophelia, go and spy on Hamlet. Pretend you're reading this book.
Hamlet: Get thee to a nunnery!
Ophelia: WTF?
Hamlet: Did you hear me? To a nunnery! GO!

Hamlet: Sorry about this afternoon, Ophelia. Can I put my head in my lap and talk dirty to you?
Ophelia: OK.
Players perform an extremely suggestive dumb show.
Ophelia: WTF? What was that all about?
Hamlet: Never mind.
First Player is murdered by his nephew.
Claudius: WTF!!!!!

Gertrude: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet: Oh yeah? What about YOU?
Polonius: Help!
Hamlet: Aha! A Rodent Of Unusual Size! A talking one!
Hamlet stabs Polonius through the arras
Gertrude: WTF? That wasn't a R.O.U.S., that was Polonius. You killed him!
Hamlet: Oh, crap. Well, I had a pretty good lecture all thought out, so I'm going to pretend this didn't happen and deliver it to you anyway.
Ghost enters
Gertrude: WTF? Why are you talking to empty air?
Hamlet: By the way, I'm not really crazy.
Gertrude: Yeah, right.
Hamlet: Sorry about Polonius. Now I shall drag him off and dissect him.
Gertrude: WTF?

ACT FOUR

Claudius: Hamlet, I think you had better go to England. Denmark is getting a little hot to hold you.
Hamlet: 'Bye, Mom!
Claudius: WTF?

Fortinbras: Hi! Remember me? I'm invading Poland, but for some reason I'm doing it in Denmark.

Ophelia: I have gone mad. They say the owl was a baker's daughter.
Claudius and Gertrude: WTF?

Pirates: We are the Plot Device Pirates! Arrr!!!
Hamlet: Pirates! Just what I was looking for! Please abduct me and take me aboard your ship!
Pirates: WTF?

Gertrude: I'm sorry about your sister, Laertes, but she drowned. At least it was very poetical.
Claudius: I'm sure you can see this is all Hamlet's fault. Go and kill him.

ACT FIVE

Hamlet: Hey, here's a skull! Let me talk to it for a while.
Gravedigger: WTF?
Funeral procession enters
Laertes: I wanted my sister to have a really nice funeral, but the mean priest wouldn't let me. Well, at least I can give her a memorable funeral.
Leaps into the grave.
Hamlet: I loved her more than you did!
Leaps into the grave.
Mourners: WTF?
Hamlet: Oh, and just in case you happened to be thinking of eating a crocodile, I'll do that, too.

Laertes: Let's have a fencing-match, bro. I totally don't hate you any more.
Hamlet: OK. Sorry about what happened at the funeral, man. I guess I got a little carried away.
The foils are poisoned. So is the wine. Everybody dies, except Horatio and Osric.
Fortinbras: Hi, I'm back from invading Poland. WTF? Why is everyone dead?
Horatio: It's a long story.
The English Ambassadors: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, too. Remember them?
Horatio: Sorry, no one's going to thank you for that.
Fortinbras: I guess I might as well be king, since I'm the only person with royal blood left alive.
Horatio: Sigh. I guess you might as well. Hamlet would have wanted it, anyway.
The entire court: WTF?

Can one desire too much of a good thing?

What do you MEAN, I might have gone slightly overboard?

Travelogue, part 3: On Shakespeare and Travel

So, my last travel post got me as far as the Greek islands -- Rhodes, to be exact. There was another continent right across the sea, one that looked temptingly near and tantalizingly new and strange. So I got on a boat and went there.



I paid my 15 Euros for a visa, and went outside the ferry terminal trying to get my bearings, and went to an ATM to get some Turkish money. More or less immediately, a man approached me and asked me if I needed a place to stay. I said no, I already had a reservation. Then he asked, "Are you Fretful?" and for a moment I felt as if I had come to a very weird place, and he said "There are two ways to get there, you can walk twenty minutes that way or you can take a taxi." And then I worked out that he was, in fact, the owner of the pension where I had a reservation, which also happened to be the most popular backpacker-type place in town, and there was nothing weird about it at all. But for half a minute, it was all very uncanny and disorienting, and I really understood what Antipholus of Syracuse is feeling when he thinks the town is full of witches. And I hadn't even gotten to Ephesus yet.

(I went to Ephesus the next day. It was pretty amazing.)



This is what's left of the temple of Diana. (You know, the place where long-lost children go to be reunited with their mothers. Because when you've been separated from your husband and kids through a maritime calamity, becoming a priestess of Diana or an abbess or something is The Thing To Do.)



What I hadn't known is that it is quite a way from the ancient city of Ephesus, easily a mile or more down the road. I walked. It was very hot and there were goats. It was fun to imagine the whole pack of them -- Antipholus and Antipholus and Dromio and Dromio, and Adriana and Luciana and the goldsmith and the courtesan -- running pell-mell down the road.

You might have gathered that I like traveling to places that appear in Shakespeare's plays. Actually, I kind of want to travel to all of them, and maybe take one of those plush Shakespeare dolls with me, only Pentapolis poses a problem, since it's apparently in Libya.

The first time I went to Venice (OK, sadly, so far it's the only time I've been to Venice), I wrote this in my travel journal: Walked through the old Jewish ghetto, trying to imagine Jessica throwing down a casket of jewels from a seventh-story window. (I've come to the conclusion that I read too much fiction and not enough history; I keep thinking: that is the sort of palace Brabantio would build; would Othello have walked here?)

Eight years later, I'm not sure I care that I don't read enough history. Fiction is fun. And sometimes you learn unexpected stuff, as I did when I went to Windsor three years ago and realized how incredibly imposing Windsor Castle is, and how the whole town is pretty much in its shadow. And how much you don't get that feeling from reading Merry Wives, where it's just this place in the background, and people talk about the court every now and again, generally in not-especially-flattering terms. (Which, actually, totally tied in with the argument I made in my dissertation chapter about that play, only I hadn't gotten it on a gut level before.)

So if I'd had a little more time to explore, I think I would have liked to go to Mytilene and Tarsus and Antioch and Philippi. (Sadly, I didn't. I went to Istanbul instead, by the overnight bus, which was a little surreal, especially the part where they put the bus on a boat to go from Asia to Europe.) But then, you always have to save something for next time.