Mern Þonke

The Children of Húrin

2007-04-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

People are starting to ask me about The Children of Húrin, the new Tolkien yarn which was released. For anyone who doesn't know, this is an old yarn, which Tolkien began writing before 1920. He never completed it, and our knowledge of the story comes from references in The Lord of the Rings and the cut-down versions produced by his son Christopher for The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. Other materials related to the story were published by Christopher Tolkien in The War of the Jewels and The Lays of Beleriand, vol. 3, which contains a remarkable version in alliterative verse. The Children of Húrin is a new attempt by Christopher Tolkien piece together a longer, more novelistic version from his father's unfinished drafts. I have not yet read the new volume; my copy should arrive sometime in the next couple of days. My greatest fear is that it will be too similar to the materials we have seen before. But my disappointment should that prove to be the case, is not a critical judgement on its quality as a work of literature.

In fact, the first couple of reviews have already appeared on the web: Bryan Appleyard's odd piece in The Times, Elizabeth's Hand's review in the Washington Post, and the blog "review" of Michael Drout. I am struck by the fact that Appleyard, who is unsympathetic to Tolkien's writing, claims to like The Children of Húrin. [Note: This is updated wording. My original post accidentally lumped Elizabeth Hand's approach in this categoricy and thus misrepresented her review. Thanks to Hand for pointing this out.]

Appleyard's approval (however qualified) has got me thinking. Perhaps Tolkien's impact and influence is simply undeniable now, and saying you don't like Tolkien is beginning to sound simply contrary--like saying you don't like Shakespeare. It is legitimate to quibble about details, but dismissing Tolkien's work as rubbish, as some critics once did, is perhaps no longer possible.

I wonder, however, if there is not something else at work here. The Children of Húrin does not have a happy ending; it is ultimately a tragedy. I don't want to say much more for fear of introducing spoilers. Instead, I want to think about the possibility that this tragic quality is in fact what is triggering the approval of normally unsympathetic critics. Tragedy is somehow weightier and more profound than comedy (in the medieval sense of a story with a happy ending) or romance (which also gestures in that direction). Perhaps the arbiters of modern taste feel that Tolkien has finally obliged them with a work which meets modern criteria. I think this is a bit unfair with respect to the dynamism of Tolkien's earlier published work (especially as this tale has already appeared in shorter forms). On the other hand, this would be the first complete free-standing tale in the tragic genre--and perhaps there is something new and significant in that. I have always felt that the tale of the Children of Húrin--even in condensed and draft forms--was particularly powerful, and this version might enhance that power considerably. Perhaps this is the workfor which Tolkien could have said,

Go litel bok, go litel myn tragedye,
Ther God thi makere yet, er that he dye,
So sende myght to make yn some comedye.
But litel bok, no makyng thow n'envye,
But subgit be to alle poesye,
And kys the steppes where as thow seest pace,
Virgile, Ovyde, Omer, Lukan, and Stace.

I hope at least, that this new work will give the reflexive comparisons to Homer and Virgil a new meaning.

More on The Children of Húrin once I've actually read it.

More on Space

2006-03-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

UPDATE

Some weeks ago I wrote an opening piece on some thoughts about space, which, unfortunately, I have not been able to follow up on. (The reasonse are the subject of another blog entry). I do still intend to write more on this subject. For now, however, I want to link to "When Virtual Worlds Collide", a recent article in Wired which treats the question from another angle (video games). My commentary will follow soon (hopefully).

UPDATE:

In the comments to this post, Sharon points out that there is a response to the Wired article at Terra Nova, and also a Tablula Rasa role-playing game which exemplifies the convergence of online gaming communities. I don't have time for a significant commentary this morning, but some of the issues under discussion resemble narrative intertextuality. It might be interesting to think about how such intertextuality functions in the construction of community. More later, but, for now, thanks for the tips, Sharon.

An LA moment

2006-03-05T21:12:00.000-08:00

I just got back from the Medieval Association of the Pacific Conference in Salt Lake City. Most of my spare time for the past few weeks has consisted of getting my paper ready, so I haven't had much time to post new blog entries. Despite it's being an easy trip between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, I'm pretty tired from the conference, so now I'm in recovery mode.

My one achievement since arriving back in LA has been to help my wife shop for a formal attire business event tomorrow. So here's the LA moment. The saleswoman in Macy's shoe department, when she learned that my wife was looking for shoes to match her dress, enquired: "Are you looking for something for the Academy Awards?" We were much amused.

Save the 76 Ball!

2006-02-21T18:40:00.000-08:00

For background, see the BBC News article "Can we have our balls back, please?".

A question of space

2006-02-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking for some time about the existence in our mode of though of a grand narrative which, through a convergence of various fields of knowledge, defines the function of space in the Middle Ages. The narrative in general goes like this: the medieval period lacked the technology of large-scale movement of people and information; medieval society was thus characteristically local, and its cultures defined by local conditions. In modern times, more advanced technology allowed for greater movement and interaction. This allowed for the growth of bureaucracy and the overlay of larger ‘imagined communities’ such as the nation on top of older, disparate affiliations (so argues Benedict Anderson). Today, that technology had propelled us into the post-modern world in which whole populations are displaced from their geographical origins and juxtaposed, and in which complex communications between geographically distant locations can take place in cyberspace. Communities no longer function within the contiguous boundaries of nations, and geography is becoming increasingly irrelevant. In short, communities functioned first within regional space, then national space, and now in cyberspace.

There are lots of holes in this narrative. Local communities are just as likely to be ‘imagined’ as national ones. The nation is pre-dated by plenty of examples of bureaucracy and ideology that were shared across diverse geographical spaces. And it has yet to be shown that the entry of the participation of the human intellect in virtual communities involves a breaking free of the cultural constructs of the region where its body is housed. Indeed, there are thousands of web sites devoted to local communities. Even the web sites of multinational corporations often divide themselves into subwebs based on region. Finally, many web sites contain proprietary sections not accessible to the global community. (For example, most universities have web-based enrolment and administration sites, as well as on-line teaching sites, which are accessible only to members of those universities.) One possible lesson to take from this is that, as communities expand, they also shrink. There will always be microcosms within the macrocosm. The question is, how do they relate?

Well, I don’t intend to supply an answer in this blog entry, as I don’t have time to write more than a couple of not-very-polished paragraphs at a time (they don’t pay us to write at universities with 4-4 teaching loads). But in the coming weeks I hope to address different aspects of this question in further entries.

Some delays

2006-01-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of classes, but, as my first one is at 11 am, I have time for a quick blog entry. The inteneded writing I mentioned earlier has been somewhat delayed by my duties on the personnel committee (we had thirteen candidates to evaluate for retention, tenure, and promotion) and by continuing problems with my house. Whilst I was at the MLA Convention in Washington DC, my wife discovered a leak in a copper pipe inside the living room wall. She had to have someone come and rip open the wall to repair it, but the damage was done. Dehumidifers under the brand new carpet installed after the last flood prevented any mould growth, but our place is trashed. However, the laminate flooring which makes up approximately half of our floor space, has started to come up, and the nature of the beast is that the entire floor must be replaced. I am estimating that all the repairs will cost about a tenth of my annual gross income, and I am not sure how much will be covered by insurance.

Wish me luck in dealing with the money pit where I live. In the meantime, , since it's pretty obvious that I'll have to abandon any hope of substantive research activity in the near future, rest assured that I will get around to writing something more substantive here in a few days.

Not what I needed to read

2006-01-20T17:52:00.000-08:00

Looking through the film reviews in The Week (a journal which gathers assorted media views on a wide range of topics). I came across one for Tristan and Isolde -- sorry, Tristan & Isolde -- which quotes David Germain in the Associated Press as follows: "Great, now Hollywood's handing out homework." The review continues: "Tristan & Isolde may not be quite as mind-numbing as a weekend assignment to read the works of Thomas Malory, 'but it's close'."

I have no opinion on the film -- which I haven't seen -- but isn't it lovely to know that one's subject matter is viewed with such sustain, and that great literature is nothing more than a boring chore?

On a slightly less critical note, the review points out that, although the story "packs as much longing and dramatic pedigree" (I think they're still quoting Germain here) as the stories of Romeo and Juliet and Lancelot and Guinevere, it "has, for the most part, been relegated to history's dustbin" (a quote from the review, not Germain). I'd agree with that. I wonder why?

Looking for England

2006-01-16T21:29:00.000-08:00

Today the BBC ran an article entitled 'Looking for England', which I'm linking to here mainly as a bookmark for some future writing. For a while now, debate over the definition of Englishness (and Britishness) has been taking place in a very explicit way in the United Kingdom. The discourse in government and media circles, although not always as sophisticated as academic discourse, nevertheless resembles academic attempts to understand multiculturalism in today's world much more closely than is normally the case. The basic question is whether it is possible to find a unifying principle of community in today's world. This touches on some ideas I have been working with for some time. I hope to get more posts up on it in the next few days.

A Headline News Story on the Yogh

2006-01-10T07:56:00.000-08:00

A headline news story on the yogh! I thought it would never happen! I'm feeling a wee bit weepy.

Incidentally, Menzies Campbell was my local MP when I was a student at St Andrews. I frequently use him when teaching students about the yogh. There was once an attempt to create a Europe-wide voice recognition system for telephone directory enquiries. They tested it by having Menzies Campbell say his name. If you want to know why the system didn't work, follow the link above.

No new reading today

2005-11-29T23:00:00.000-08:00

Gemma's literary pursuits did not extend to any new titles from the book shelf today, perhaps because I was working from home. However, my wife did find a (toy) mouse drowned in her drink -- not for the first time. Perhaps Gemma is also into inventing new cocktails.

My cat's interesting reading habits

2005-11-28T19:54:00.000-08:00

After Sunday's discovery of my cat's propensity for Shakespeare, I may have to begin a regular chronicle of her reading habits. Today I returned from work to find Fahrenheit 451 and Middlemarch removed from the shelf. If this keeps up, maybe some kind of pattern will emerge (suggestions welcome).

My cat's name, incidentally, is Gemma. I'll try and get a picture of her up in the near future.

OK, here she is, as she sinks to full fathom five...

Can't you just hear her pitiful cries for help?

What is my cat reading?

2005-11-27T17:21:00.000-08:00

Some bloggers regularly post the titles of books they are currently reading, a practice to which I have not yet succumbed. However, I will indulge myself by posting my cat's current reading list, which, to go by the books she had arranged on the floor when I got home today, consists of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest, Hamlet (two editions), All's Well That Ends Well, Anthony and Cleopatra, and As You Like It. Now I know what she gets up to when I'm not around.

Happy Thanksgiving

2005-11-23T12:23:00.000-08:00

To those readers in the appropriate country--

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a quick test

2005-11-18T12:15:00.000-08:00

It has been some time since I used BlogThis! to submit a blog entry since it stopped working when I updates some software (Windows, Internet Explore--I can't remember which). However, I've just discovered that it has been added as an option to the Google Toolbar, so I thought I'd try and see if it works. Here goes...

Tolkien's Use of 'Weapontake'

2005-11-14T18:29:00.000-08:00

Within the last week or so a discussion has arisen about the use of ‘weapontake’ in The Lord of the Rings. The discussion seems to have been started by Horace Jeffery Hodges, progressed to Scott Nokes, and then on to Mike Drout.

What follows will be rather lengthy because I’m reproducing a fair amount of my comments on Drout’s blog and Drout’s further discussion. Here is what Drout had to say:

The context of 'weapontake' in Tolkien is the "Muster of Rohan," when all the men able to bear weapons are assembled in preparation for the ride to Minas Tirith. It seems from the passage (RK, V, ii, 72) that Tolkien is using the word to mean the assembly of all the able-bodied men of Rohan in companies. Although a folk etymology might construe the passage as meaning that the king provided the weapons--i.e., the able-bodied men arrive and are issued weapons from the king's armory-- (as was the case in Peter Jackson's depiction of the Rohirrim in both The Two Towers and The Return of the King), I don't think Tolkien intended that meaning, and I don't think that would be accurate for Anglo-Saxon England (I could be wrong here).
[Snip]
The etymon for the word seems to be ON "vápna-tak," though this is used in a different sense. It is, according to Bosworth-Toller, a Northern word; in the south "hundred" was used (which is why I think that folk-etymologizing the word and assuming that it means that men showed up somewhere to "take" their weapons is probably wrong), and its being Northern would explain the ON etymon. Bosworth-Toller gives the primary source as the laws of Edward the Confessor.

The point here is that Tolkien is likening the Rohirrim to the Anglo-Saxons yet again (even though the "Northern" word is a bit of a curve ball here, since the Rohirrim are linguistically Mercian), suggesting that at the king's call, all the men of Rohan were expected to assemble for military service and form themselves into companies that were, apparently, led by the professional soldiers of the king's household. This practice is in contra-distinction to the customs of Gondor, where a large, standing, professional army was in place.
The larger point is that Tolkien is not merely being archaic for the sake of archaism: he is being particularly precise, using exactly the right word (both in terms of definition and cultural connotations) that he needs for this particular situation. Tolkien's sense of the "right" word, which includes sound and etymology, is actually more 'theorized' than the word choices of the great Modernists to who he is often unfavorably compared (do you really think Faulkner, or Hemingway, or Woolf knew anything of the History of English; they were great talents, but they were working by gut instinct. Joyce is a somewhat different case, but he was no historical philologist--although knowing and sampling so many languages made him more sensitive to the interconnections of European languages).

For the sake of completeness, I also reproduce my own comments here:

Here are some thoughts on weapontake. The Old Norse use of vápnatak seems to have involved the confirmation of a vote at an assembly. In England, the word came to be used for the assembly itself and was, in areas with heavy Danish populations applied to the local judicial body. It was probably also used for the place where the assembly met. As the administrative and judicial boundaries within English counties became more stable, the sense was extended to refer to areas of jurisdiction in addition to the bodies themselves, rather than just the body or the place of the court. We can thus see a sort of evolution in the word from the taking up of weapons to an area of jurisdiction, and it might be possible to locate Tolkien’s usage on this timeline.
It seems to me that, when Tolkien writes that ‘all who could be spared were riding to the weapontake at Edoras’, he could mean a point of assembly, but probably not an official jurisdictional unit for the region of Edoras (the precise meaning of which is also quite interesting, especially given its use in two different senses in Beowulf 1035-1045). In other words, it’s in the middle of the timeline. But, of course, there is no necessity to assume that the weapontake of the Rohirrim accurately reflects the wapentake of Anglo-Saxon England, since the Rohirrim do not exactly match the Anglo-Saxons. Tolkien modernises the spelling (unlike Edoras), which, conceivably takes it in a new—or an alternative—direction consistent with a possible folk etymology: a taking up of weapons as part of a military gathering. The modernisation of the spelling curiously gives the word a more archaic effect by restoring the original connection to weapons. Perhaps this was necessary. Words like Edoras don’t seem particularly archaic to anyone who doesn’t know Old English; they’re simply foreign words like Minas Tirith. But if Tolkien wanted to give the sense of something familiarly English, but archaic, the term weapontake worked pretty well.
As a side note, Higden’s definition is very interesting. Here it is in John of Trevisa’s 1387 translation (with the thorns changed to ‘th’ and yogh to ‘y’): ‘Wepentake and an hondred is al oon, for the contray of an hondred townes were i-woned to yilde vppe wepene in the comynge of the lord.’ I take this to mean: ‘A wapentake is the same as a hundred, for the country of a hundred towns were wont to present weapons at the coming of the lord’. Clearly the word was prone to folk etymology, and it is not impossible that Tolkien had something similar in mind; i.e. Théoden would take the weapons offered by those who owed fealty to him.

Drout draws attention to a little thread at The One Ring, which refers to the discussion and queries the importance of such philological knowledge in the interpretation of The Lord of the Rings, questioning Nokes’s observation that “a deep understanding of medieval language or culture is a prerequisite to serious study” of Tolkien.

Drout responds:

I think this raises a very interesting literary-theoretical question (one which I tried to deal with in my essay "Towards a Better Tolkien Criticism," which should be out any day now in a collection called Reading The Lord of the Rings): which reader's interepretation is more likely to be correct? I can come up with a number of types of readers, each of whom will have slightly different information with which to interpret. What is the authority of each reader?

Drout points out that a philologist with training like Tolkien’s is more likely to have insight into Tolkien’s mind and to possess more information (like the meaning of the historical meaning of “weapontake”) with which to read his work than is fanboy/girl. The philologist’s interpretation is therefore theoretically “richer and more likely to be correct than that of fanboy/girl.” However, he also points out that empowering the philologist in this way privileges author intent as the only meaningful type of interpretation. Furthermore, “even if we do accept author intent, we have to take into account the very insightful comment by Curious [on the One Ring that] ‘Tolkien did not write LotR for an audience of philologists’.”

I want to take up a couple of the issues raised here. First, I don’t entirely agree with the statement that Tolkien did not write The Lord of the Rings for an audience of philologists. After all, he does state explicitly that in the foreword to the second edition and elsewhere that the story took shape according to his own tastes; and Tolkien was a philologist. However, I do accept that Tolkien was thinking about the use to which philology could be put in reaching a non-philological audience. If I’m right, then philological knowledge is essential to our understanding of his intent. That is not to say that it provides the complete picture—just that it should not be ignored. The same is true for other fields, so I agree with Drout’s suggestion that we foster multiple perspectives. How Tolkien intended his philology to affect a non-philological audience is a fascinating and worthwhile question, which may require us to adopt multiple fields of knowledge. But what if we wish to abandon authorial intent altogether? What if we just look at reader response? Do we need to abandon philology, which is unknown to the majority of readers? I believe that Tolkien’s use of “weapontake” provides an interesting test case.

Let’s look at my analysis of “weapontake” more closely. A philological analysis reveals some interesting data to start out with. The element –take is not a native English word; it was borrowed from Old Norse taka perhaps as early as 1000, and occurs first in northern and eastern England, more or less in areas where they had wapentakes instead of hundreds. The first element, however, is derived from the southern dialect form of Old English wæpen (with a long vowel in the root). In other words, Tolkien’s “weapontake” is a hybrid word, not the historical wapentake. As a philologist, I can say this much. Now comes the difficult bit, where I have to put myself in the shoes of a nonphilologist. I take as my framework for speculation two possibilities. First, an intelligent reader, one who makes a serious effort to understand the literature, even if they do not share Tolkien’s background. Such a reader, coming across the strange word “weapontake” would, logically, go and look up the word. Because of the spelling, they might not find it. If they did, they would begin speculating about whether Tolkien’s matches any historical one. All sorts of questions would be begged about the relationship of the Rohirrim to the English past. I’m not sure what the answers would be, in part because I can’t divest myself of my philological perspective enough to put myself in the shoes of this reader. On the other, by this point, the reader would already be trying on one of my shoes. In other words, whether Tolkien intended it or not, the use of the word “weapontake” prompts the reader to begin speculations of a philological nature even if they’ve never had a course on philology.

Of course, there’s another type of reader, one who doesn’t have the same intellectual curiosity. This reader is more likely to pass over the word and not enquire of its meaning. Of course, it’s even harder for me to put myself in the shoes of this reader. Does a word like “weapontake” have no effect at all on this reader? Does it induce a sense of disorientation? Other effects? Does these effects influence broader views of the book? Suggestions are welcome.

The California Special Election has barely started, and there are already problems

2005-11-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

Polls in the California Special Election have been open for less than two hours, and there are already problems. My wife and I went to our usual polling station to find it closed with a note providing a number to call to find out where to vote. The recorded message we received when we called the number directed us to a local Mexican restaurant, which also had signs telling us that the polling station was closed. A concerned citizen had posted another sign directing us to a Jeep dealership about a half a mile away, where, at last, we found an open polling station--which did not look very busy. We gave lift to another voter who had come to the Mexican restaurant and probably spent almost a half an hour getting to the right location. Although I work from home today, my wife had to get to work, and she might have just thrown in the towel after the second closed polling station. These circumstances are bound to produce a low voter turnout, and, by all accounts, a low turnout will help the propositions sponsored by Arnold Schwarzenegger. This creates a deeply disturbing scenario. For an election which Schwarzenegger himself is billing as "Judgement Day", we cannot afford to have the electoral process tainted by the disenfranchisement of voters. If these problems are occurring in my comfortable and affluent West Los Angeles neighbourhood, I wonder what is happening in poorer areas. It is the Presidential election all over again.

Please, if you are reading this and have not yet voted, find your polling station (whatever the obstacles) and make your opinion heard. The issues (some of which I have discussed here) are too important to stay away from. You can find your local polling station here (and the web site does seem to be accurate).

The California Special Election, or, Terminate the Teachers

2005-10-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

The California special election takes place in just under two weeks time, and I need to return to the discussion I began here and here. This will be a very important election, as it will have a number of long-term consequences. Aside from the effects of the individual propositions, they will set some important precedents, which will determine attitudes towards public services in the future. Where California goes the nation follows. It is vital that everybody get out and vote.

It is with great reluctance that I place any personal endorsements in this sphere, but the advertising on both sides has been appallingly simplistic and manipulative. I feel compelled to give my perspective, particularly for the three propositions—74, 75, and 76—which will effect education. Here’s my take on these issues:

Proposition 74
This proposition increases the probationary period before tenure for teachers from two years to five. The reason for doing so is to eliminate the large number of bad teachers that plague the school system. But how big is this problem? Small fries compared to the other problems: low funding for education and many social problems amongst the student population. If there are a large number of bad teachers, the reason is because the low pay and the difficulty of working conditions make the profession unattractive to those who might make better teachers. Schwarzenegger’s solution, will certainly get rid of some bad apples, but will also make the profession even less attractive. The result? The lost teachers and potential teachers will lead to a shortage of teachers in the schools. The schools will be forced to adopt recruiting strategies to respond to this crisis, and the only way to do so is to lower standards. In other words, voting yes on this proposition will not lead to any improvements. It will, however, lead to the further degradation of the teaching profession. In combination with Proposition 75 and/or 75, its negative effects would probably be magnified. If you care about having good teachers—if you REALLY care about having good teachers—in our schools, vote for education reforms that support the profession. It’s the only way to improve things.

Proposition 75
This proposition prevents public employees’ unions (such as the teachers’ union and university faculty unions) from spending employees’ dues on political lobbying (such as television advertising against propositions like this one) without the employees first opting in to such a programme. Currently, they have a choice to opt out. In other words, the default is changed. The argument is that these unions spend their money on causes which the dues payers do not necessarily support. Here’s the real situation, at least for the California Faculty Association. Our pay is docked about $25 a month for union dues—even if we don’t join the union. If we do join, we pay more. That sounds horrible! But consider this. The union does not always lobby for positions I support; but it is the ONLY pressure group that lobbies the government to raise my salary. Name me one employee who doesn’t want a higher salary, especially in a low-paying profession? Unions are the major lobby for the teaching profession, since the general public—since the seventies—voted not to fully fund education through property taxes. We need them, even if we don’t always agree with their positions on individual issues. The best way to address one’s disagreement with a union is to get involved and try to influence it. At the very least, opt out of paying the higher dues but support the union’s activities by agreeing to pay the lower ones.

But what if you are not a public employee? Is it appropriate for you to vote to change the rules? Yes, if you truly believe that public employees have too much power, and that public professions are just squandering your tax money on frivolity and cushy salaries. But surely they are not. Public education, to name the system with which I am most concerned, is chronically underfunded by the general public, who then complain about its ineffectiveness, as do the devisers of Proposition 74. Proposition 75 weakens the only organisations that consistently speak up for education. Voting yes on 75 will make the teaching profession less attractive and, ironically, feed the poor teacher problem that Proposition 74 claims (wrongly) to address.

Proposition 76
This proposition gives the governor broad powers to adjust the State budget downwards in order to prevent overspending by the legislature. It is marketed as fiscally responsible. It is—according to a business model. But the public sphere is not a business. There are some things you can’t downsize to balance your books. The Governor claims that the legislature will not be fiscally responsible on its own. That’s true because they are influenced by other forms of responsibility like education and public services. Schwarzenegger, I believe, clearly feels no responsibility for these social goods. Nor does he see their long-term value. Cutting funding to education weakens education and leads to a less educated work force. A less educated work force leads to a weaker economy and more social problems. A weaker economy and more social problems lead to more budgetary woes. In order to have a stable economy you need to have invest a certain minimum amount in public services, and we are already well below the necessary minimum. Republicans might argue that balancing the books and keeping taxes low will stimulate the economy and filter down. But even if this is true, it does not help the public sphere in a society where the wealthy don’t pay taxes which fuel money back into the public sphere. Proposition 76 is a great proposition for a governor who will be able to use it to great effect and who will long be out of office when the negative effects hit.

An important provision of Proposition 76 is that it will roll back Proposition 98 (approved by voters in 1988), which sets a minimum amount of spending for education. That this provision should be included in Proposition 76 shows precisely where the Governor will take aim if the proposition is approved. The fact that there are three propositions supported by the Governor targeting education lends further credence to this.

Coda
Things to remember:

You get what you pay for. If you don’t pay for education—one way or the other—the available educational opportunities will not be good ones.

Teachers (and professors) are human. Just as you wouldn’t expect quality products to come from a sweatshop, you can’t expect educators to deliver a quality education under poor working conditions.

I really am cursed

2005-10-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

One week after dealing with a blocked sewer line sending dirty water welling up from my sinks, I came home from work to find a small wet patch in the carpet right beneath my desk chair. The wet patch started to grow--fast. It turned out that there had been a leaky pipe in the (thankfully fresh) water injection system in the toilet of one of the units above me. Water had come out at the rate of at least a gallon a minute and flooded my neighbour's second bedroom. He didn't notice since he currently not living there -- that because his place is under construction, since it was flooded during the last rainy season due to our poorly constructed roof. So the water gradually made its way under the wall and into my carpet. It was 11 pm before I had managed to get a plumber to ascertain that (a) it was not more sewage, (b) it was not rainwater (we had been experiencing torrential rain all day, (c) turn off the water to the offending toilet upstairs, and (d) vacuum up some of the water in the carpet. It took another two hours yesterday for the carpet shampooers to come, suck up more water, and clean. Needless to say, very little work has been done in the intervening time. Sigh.

Living the High Life

2005-10-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

My planned ramblings on PhD reform have been trumped today by my response to an NPR report on the new Miller High Life (that's what loosely passes for beer, if you happen to be reading this from a country with a fine brewing tradition) advertising campaign. For the present, you can see the advert at http://www.millerhighlife.com/. Although The basic thrust of the campaign is that Miller High Life, with its Girl in the Moon emblem, has been around for most of the historical events (major and minor) of the last century. It appeals to nostalgia, not for things remembered, for the past in general--at least the past that overlaps with Miller's history. The obvious message is that by drinking the beer you are somehow connected people and events in, say, 1906. It's a very effective advert, albeit some of its effectiveness comes from its abandonment of the traditional conventions of beer advertising.

The way the Miller High Life advert connects people to the past got me thinking about the way that we in the world of literary criticism, and more specifically those of us who study the Middle Ages, form such connections. To read the publications of the MLA and other professional organisations, there is a crisis in the profession about how we sell ourselves to the public. Our discipline will never survive unless we show how it is relevant, and we've been doing a very bad job of it in recent years. But I wonder. Have we really been doing such a bad job. Yes, the discipline is in trouble, but look at the resources available to us for getting our message across. Almost nothing. We have minimal budgets, a wealth of competition from a myriad other subjects, the general difficulty of the field (ack! all those languages), and the subject doesn't directly generate a lot of money. Nevertheless, we continue to gain new students and there's certainly a fair amount of medievalia (however distorted) in the general pop culture. Given the circumstances, surely we are doing a fabulous job. Perhaps we should be congratulating ourselves rather than agonising over our seeming irrelevance.

But could we do better? Could we be as effective as, say, a Miller High Life advert? What's the difference between those who use the past to deliver their product and those who deliver the past as their product? Well, don't answer that one. I'm sure there are a great many differences between a brewer and a medievalist. My point, though, is that both work with the premise that the past is somehow relevant. Admittedly, Miller has a product, the beer, which serves as the medium for the connection between the consumer and the past. Perhaps that's what medievalists (and literary critics in general) need: a product to help forge that connection. Supposedly we have various such projects: good writing skills, critical analysis, and the like. But these are nothing like as tangible as a bottle of beer. Could we come up with something more tangible?

To approach that problem, I think it is helpful to look at things from Miller's point of view. Their beer is really just a fermented liquid, not a metaphysical medium for connections between the past and the present. The rest is good marketing--devised by a good marketing company. And this is where I think the medievalists really differ from the brewers. The medievalists have to do their marketing on their own. The brewers can call on experienced marketers who (for the right price) will devise a way to sell their product. I wonder whether things would be different if we had the same resource available to us. In fact, I think there are ways that this could be done by clever interdisciplinary work, the use of grant money, and the like. But even if no such solutions are taken on board, it might be a good idea for us all to take a closer look at the techniques used by professional marketers to see what, if anything, we can learn from them.

If this seems like a load of nonsense, wit it the ale of Milwaukee, to misquote another Miller entirely.

I think I'm cursed

2005-10-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's plans were disrupted by my discovery that my copy of Microsoft Outlook had become corrupted and had not sent any mail for the past week. After I spent about two hours fixing the problem, I set out to return to the Saturday I had intended to have. But then there was a loud "glug glug" sound, and dirty water started well up into our sinks and overflow. It turns out that there was a block in the sewer line. Eight hours later, after much flooding and working with plumbers, the problem is fixed, but we are still cleaning up the mess. So much for a relaxing weekend. Alas, my planned entry on reforming PhD programmes will have to wait...

Spam Attack

2005-10-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

Sadly, this blog has finally fallen prey to spam in the comments, so I have had to enable word verification. Apologies for the inconvenience to anyone leaving comments.

I have a backlog of topics for discussion, so look for another post over the weekend.

Where have I been?

2005-09-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been doing much blogging over the summer, as I have been fighting against numerous mental and physical obstacles in order to get some work done. Stomach flu levelled me during June and July, with exhausting family-related trips before and after. Recarpeting meant that my study had to be dismantled and moved into the living room, and to top off the summer I banged my toe on items of furniture—twice—fracturing it. (Actually, the X-Rays don’t show anything, but, as it’s still not healed, there must be an invisible fracture.) I’m also trying not to add to the barrage (I almost said flood) of Hurricane Katrina analysis on the web. I’ll just make two comments. First, I have had e-mails regarding the plight of some medieval scholars in the New Orleans area, whose houses were destroyed, and my heart goes out to them. Second, it is a mess down there, and money is needed. Please give as much as you can by whatever means.

So did I get any work done? Never enough—but yes. Here’s a précis:

Entries for the forthcoming J.R.R Tolkien Encyclopedia. Topics were on the Middle English King Horn, the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, Tolkien’s article ‘Sigelwara Land’ on the Old English word for Ethiopian, and his reviews of philological publications in the 1920s for The Year’s Work in English Studies. I still have a number of further entries to complete, including ones on Tolkien’s knowledge of Middle English and his depiction of kingship.

An entry for the International Encyclopaedia for the Middle Ages--Online on ‘The Normans in Britain and Ireland: 1154-1217’.

Ongoing research for my book Regionalism and Identity in Medieval England. This summer I began work on the South English Legendary, a collection of saints’ lives and other material which was one of the more popular and widely distributed Middle English texts.

Began writing my paper (titled ‘Somerset before Dante’) for the MLA Convention in December.

Embarked upon a major re-design of the English Department web site. I’m hoping to unveil it by the end of the semester.

Is that enough? Oh yes, and I was promoted to Associate Professor. At Cal State Northridge, that means more work. I’ll find out next month whether my cheque compensates for it.

Medieval Medicine

2005-08-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Years ago I did some research on an eleventh to twelfth-century medieval text called Peri Didaxeon. I have been interested in medieval medicine ever since. Recent research is showing new evidence of its sophistication; witness this recent article on the BBC web site. Check out the related articles for further information.

Follow-up to Schwarzenegger's Education 'Reforms'

2005-06-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

It seems that Schwarzenegger has already got part of the control over education spending he seeks through the propositions to appear in the November ballot (see discussion in yesterday's post). The plot is summed up in an article in today's LA Times:

SACRAMENTO — Republicans in the Legislature spoiled an effort by Democrats to meet Wednesday's constitutional deadline for passing a state budget, calling the plan too expensive — although it differed little from the one proposed by the Republican governor a month ago.

Only eight Republican votes were needed for lawmakers to approve the $115.7-billion budget bill and send it to the governor's desk for his signature. But all Republicans in both houses voted no, saying they opposed some spending in the Democratic plan that was not in the governor's budget.

[snip]

The budget the Democrats presented largely conceded to the demands of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to limit spending in several areas. The lawmakers had abandoned their demand that he give $3 billion more to schools, and that the budget include new taxes on wealthy Californians.

Democrats did not want to wage a prolonged budget battle after Schwarzenegger this week called a Nov. 8 special election. They feared that a fight could motivate voters to pass state spending controls he helped place on that ballot.

In addition, the influential California Teachers Assn., which is threatened by that measure and one that could hamper unions' ability to fund political campaigns, counseled the Democrats — who benefit from union donations — to move on.

Although the budget will be slightly better for education than we feared it might be six months ago, the failure of Democratic legislatures to secure even more funding gives a good idea of where the political will is in California today.

Reforming Education in California

2005-06-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

As the Michael Jackson mania begins to die down, it is about to be replaced in California by the Schwarzenegger show. To wit, the Governator has called for a special election in which he will be pushing for some very controversial reforms (as he calls them). As education is a prime target of Schwarzenegger’s proposals, I want to provide some analysis of their implications. Before I go on I should make clear my two areas of bias. First, I’m a university professor, and, when push comes to shove, I care first about the implications for higher education. Second, I have consulted the web sites of both sides in the debate and found that they contain mostly platitudes and sound bites, rather than analysis. Of the sites I examined, Schwarzenegger’s provides the least information on the arguments in favour of his proposals. If I am unpersuaded of them, this is in part because he has not effectively presented whatever merits they may have.

That said, let me attempt to evaluate those merits. The governor’s proposals for education seem to involve the following actions.

A constitutional amendment removing legislated minimum funding requirements for schools and essentially giving the person of the governor (as opposed to the legislature) discretion to reduce the education budget to “live within our means”. Fiscal impact is unknown, but spending cuts on education are made more likely.

An increase in the time for teachers to reach tenure from two to five years. Two consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations would be made grounds for teacher dismissal. Fiscal impact is unknown, probably varying from district to district.

Prohibits unions from using dues for political contributions without prior consent from the employee. Fiscal impact is probably minor state and local government implementation costs potentially offset in part by revenues from fines and/or fees.

I hope that by adding the predicted fiscal impacts I have made clear one flaw in the Governor’s proposals. There is great uncertainty about whether we will emerge fiscally better off. In the case of union dues, the impact might be a raising of fees to compensate for the lost income routable to political campaigning. Can you really make changes with such uncertain financial consequences and call it reform? In all likelihood, educational institutions and individual educators will suffer more often than they benefit.

I do have a lot of sympathy for what the Governor is trying to achieve through changes in the tenure and dismissal procedures: he wants better teachers. His proposal to introduce merit-based pay, which did not receive enough support to make the ballot, was part of the same proposal. It is true that the teaching profession employees and continues to attract people who are poorly suited to the job: people who lack sufficient knowledge and training or lack (for whatever reason) the ability to acquire sufficient knowledge and training to build a more educated populace. In principle, the Governor’s move is the right one: get rid of those people who shouldn’t be there.

But let’s look at his method a bit more closely. Teaching is in many ways a thankless profession, with few material rewards and often very hard working conditions. Making tenure harder and dismissal easier adds greater uncertainty to the job. This, combined with the likelihood of further spending cuts and an undermining of the power of teachers’ unions to fund the advancement of teachers’ political agendas will make the profession even less attractive. The result will be twofold. First, people who have the potential to meet the requirements Schwarzenegger wants for teachers in the system will actually be further discouraged from entering it. In short, the result will be a brain drain. Second, the profession will become a revolving door job in which people will teach for a few years and then leave either because they do not see any benefits on the horizon or because their performance is unsatisfactory and they are forced out. The result will be not only a chronic lack of experience in the profession (a further brain drain), but also a chronic need for more teachers to enter the revolving door.

And this is where my concern for higher education enters the picture. The proposals which are on the ballot, if passed, will, as I have argued, create a greater demand for universities to produce more qualified (i.e. certified) teachers. We are already buckling under this imperative with more and more of our time being spent on teacher training and many of our curricular designs limited by the requirements of our teacher education programmes. Student learning is suffering and teaching in the CSU is becoming increasingly unattractive. More and more, I am hearing of potential job candidates being advised not to accept any job in the CSU. In all likelihood, the Governor’s proposals will encourage the brain drain in higher education.

Finally, a word about merit pay. The California Faculty Association (the faculty union for the California State University) opposes introducing merit pay to teachers because this “would make it very easy for a merit pay scheme to creep back into the CSU, leaving faculty members vulnerable to subjective standards of good teaching.” Although merit pay for teachers will not be on the November ballot, there is a good chance that it will be reintroduced in the future, especially if the proposed changes in tenure are adopted. I stridently oppose the CFA’s line of reasoning here. Merit pay for teachers and merit pay for professors are two different items. Teachers are judged primarily on teaching; university professors have a more dynamic range of activities on which they can be judged meritorious. For higher education, tenure decisions are already based on subjective standards of merit; but, on the whole, they are fair and effective standards. The true agenda is that the fear in the CFA that merit pay will be based primarily on research activities, the very activities that distinguish professors from teachers. This is not a fear that I share, but that’s a debate for another time. Suffice to say that merit pay has serious problems when introduced at the pre-University level. However, that is not an argument against merit pay in higher education.

In summary, I believe the Governor’s “reforms”—however well-intentioned they may be—should be opposed for the following reasons:

Their fiscal impact is unknown, but probably overall detrimental to educational institutions and individual educators.

They will undermine the teaching profession by depriving it of revenue important to advancing its cause in government and by making it less attractive to potential educators.

They will not produce better qualified teachers. The results of the proposals will run counter to their intent because the profession will become an unattractive revolving-door profession.

They will adversely impact higher education by undermining the teaching profession at that level.

I believe that if you truly support education you must put your money where your mouth is. Many would counter that throwing money at the educational system has not improved standards. If this is true, it is often so because the barriers to achievement lie in factors outside of the control of educators (poverty, family life, and so on). But improving the quality of teachers—one of the Governor’s stated goals—can be achieved with money. Make the profession attractive to society’s best and brightest and a great many other improvements will follow.