Stratofanatic's Emporium

I've taught the online version of my Monsters, Ghosts, Aliens, and Others class so often now that I rarely, if ever, check my end-of-semester evaluations. Well, I randomly did this time around, and there's a few gems: "Cut back on the homework! You shouldn't expect me to work 18-24 hours a week on this class." Well, technically it's the University of Arizona that expects that .... "Three due dates per week is too much" (several variations on this) A case can be made for this, granted, but the problem is that, if I reduce the course to two due dates per week, that means each due date is 9-12 hours per work, and the procrastinators will mostly fail. So it's a pick your poison scenario, alas. "How we were regarded as students seemed more personal than my previous classes. Which was a positive aspect for sure." Well, thank you, student! I do try to be a friendly, enthusiastic sort. "I truly think Dr. Wise is my favorite professor I...

Just happened to glance at the latest issue of Journal of Inklings Studies , and I immediately saw a reflection by A. C. Spearing on C. S. Lewis as a research supervisor while at Cambridge University in the mid-1950s.** This struck me for two reasons. First, I've been reading a shit-ton of Lewis's literary scholarship lately, and I HAVE THOUGHTS . Second, Spearing is one of the few medievalists whom I've actually read. Way back during my time at Ohio State, I encountered Textual Subjectivity (2005) while taking a medieval literature course, and now learning that Spearing had studied under CSL is mesmerizing me. Anyway, I loved Spearing's reflection, and I'd highly recommend it . There are several passages I want to comment on specifically, so I'll take them in order. p. 112: "As is indicated by the quotation marks round ‘supervisor’ in his letter, and by its general tone of reluctance, Lewis was opposed to the professionalization of literary research and t...

Well, hey! Apparently, I've now risen to the ranks of Scholars Who Have Been Cited on Wikipedia. A friend sent me the screen shot yesterday .... he was looking at the page for Stormbringer, the sword in Michael Moorcock's S&S Elric stories, and they quoted me. If you can't read the screen shot, it says: Literature scholar Dennis Wilson Wise wrote that "a weapon like Stormbringer reinforces liberal selfhood in a particularly concrete way. It carries a continuous external threat to personal autonomy, and it subverts a fully rational self-determination. Modern fantasy heroes, especially in epic fantasy, often rail against "destiny" or a prophecy, but such destinies and prophecies lack Stormbringer's sentient specificity." Of course, now I drastically want to re-write the whole paragraph .... taken out of context, I'm not sure the quote makes a whole lot of sense. Also, why did I put "destiny" in scare quotes? But cie la vie .... it...