Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

I'm So Tired

Well, the MA Thesis Symposium that took place Monday and Tuesday all the livelong day over at SFAI went off without a hitch. I'm especially proud of my student Ian, whose Thesis I chaired and who won the Outstanding Thesis Award. Splendid and well-deserved! And now I turn my attention to grading final papers from my Politics and Anti-Politics of Design seminar and norming writing portfolios for the undergraduate writing sequence at SFAI. Undergrad fourth years (some with far more than four years to show for that "fourth year" moniker) I haven't heard from forever suddenly are discovering dusty incompletes barring their graduations that need to be addressed with no time to spare. Graduation events fill the days to come and it means a lot to students and their families to come to them, even if you are feeling that it would be better by far to find a table in the corner of a dark room to hide and hibernate in for a week. And since I'm teaching three summer intensive this year, one my usual Critical Theory survey course at SFAI, but the two at Berkeley both brand new -- an undergraduate critical writing course on nonviolence and an upper division course on the rhetoric of narrative selfhood in graphic novels -- I've got scarcely days to re-read dozens of books, re-think my lecture claims, tinker with syllabi and so on, before I'm back in the saddle again. It's a charmed life I lead, this curious rather precarious nontenured nonbenefited itinerate theoryhead troubadour lecturer's life I've cobbled together by the beautiful Bay, you'll hear few complaints from me on the grand scheme of things, but right about now I really do think I could use a good long nap....

2 comments:

Chad Lott said...

Dale, have you ever considered podcasting your lectures?

I'm a huge fan of academic podcasts.I'm not exactly surrounded by people who are into philosophy, rhetoric and whatnot and will likely not be able to afford the time or expense of a MA or PHD program.

jimf said...

I have to say, "I'm so tired" didn't make me think of John Lennon.

It made me think of Madeline Kahn as Marlene Dietrich -- er,
excuse me, Lily von Schtupp -- in _Blazing Saddles_.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLTJsFY9fXw&feature=related