So we got this flood of emails from AMIDEAST, the agency that is organizing all this for us, about how we need to be flexible, be ready for anything, and to give up any OCD tendencies that might include promptness and schedules. Quite sage advice, I would say. In that vein, they also asked us to present our curriculum projects. I think they need to be flexible about this and give up any OCD tendencies that would make them think I have any real idea about what is going to happen. I don't know who we will be seeing, I don't know if I can go to the mall by myself, I don't know what institutions we will be visiting, who we will be talking to, or anything. How can I present a project when I don't know what my data will be?
Anyway, as part of our pay-back for this experience, we are supposed to do some kind of curriculum project that cannot be just a blog or just a photo essay. I'm doing both, since it only makes sense, but I am also revamping a Middle Eastern Literature class that I will be teaching in the fall, gathering resources for my colleagues, and creating that verboten photo essay for a cultural presentation. It would be cool to get some e-pals for my classes to chat about the literature. In my Dr. Pangloss incarnation, I would like to hook up with an English Lit professor who has a lit class going on during my Middle Eastern Lit class, and have students comment on each other's blogs, which would be reflections on the literature. This way the students could be engaged in some real conversation about a literature that, on either side, could be considered highly wacky (to use a technical lit term).
In my imaginative preparations, I got into my car yesterday, wearing a business suit for a meeting, and it was toasting inside the car. I sat there for a minute before opening the windows first reflecting on how one must really adjust one's physical orientation for the kind of heat in that part of the world, and then I thought, "If I were a dog in this car, I would be dead." I kept the windows open all the way down to the main campus, but I'm still gonna have get some Dryell for that poor suit.
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5 comments:
You OWN a suit? I'm shocked, shocked, I say. Yes, it does sound like the curriculum project is being forced to fit into a box designed by AMIDEAST. I hope you find a blogging partner.
LOL, oh yes, thou fashion maven: I now own THREE suits. I had to get them because I started getting gigs where I had to look like I knew what I was doing. I got cool pointy shoes you would totally approve of, too.
Yea!! You're back up and running. I'll be teaching the Comedy in German Lit course at the time you'll be gone. Do you think there will be any overlap for correspondence? We'll be doing a survey from about 1200 till present day, covering all sorts of humorous/comedic literature. Let me know if you want to add anything to the course, so I can get it added to the syllabus.
I am so envious as usual of these trips into other conscious spaces! I just saw the last year's Boldly Go blog, which sounded very fun. I wish you could find your own person of each place to take you round as you took round theIlmenau students in Cincinnati. I wonder if you can find anyone to take you to a Sufi group? Re Frau Page and Humor in German, I must reveal my narrow-minded prejudice and ask "Humor? Comedy? In German?" Likewise for the Arabic world! Please raise my consciousness! Love, PmomPriscilla
Re: Priscilla's question
This is the precise question that I was asked when I proposed the topic as an area of study, and the one that I hope students will ask themselves (and then register for the course). There is an incredibly rich history of comedy in German literature, but most Germanists concentrate on the more serious (Goethe/Lessing and Holocaust) topics. Note they also prefer Greek tragedy. I want to laugh.
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