Stratofanatic's Emporium

 Well, it's that time of year again .... February 15th was the deadline for nominations to the Mythopoeic Society Awards , and, as awards administrator, it obviously fell to me to share those lists with the committees yesterday. We have a pretty good range of books across all four awards categories, and I'm excited to start reading them -- the scholarship awards, anyway, as I don't have time to be on the two fiction committees. Thanks to my recruitment efforts, too, we have 14 new members across the four committees, which, if it doesn't double the size of the previous committee members, comes pretty close. Fresh blood is especially important in the scholarship awards, which have traditionally had relatively few members compared with the fiction committees.  Probably this weekend I'll start ordering books from ILL and Amazon. It's going to be a good next three months!

So, having finally read enough of Chaucer now that I thought myself able to read John Bower's Tolkien's Lost Chaucer with justice, I did so .... and really liked it. Perhaps the most common critique I've seen in the reviews is that many of the correspondences he draws between Chaucer as source and Tolkien as author are rather weak. These occur mostly in the book's latter half -- the first half is more straight literary history about what went down with Tolkien and that book. At the same time, the Chaucer linkages that Bowers make between Tolkien and the Reeves's Tale and (especially) the Pardoner's Tale are particularly solid -- I thought the last bit about the Pardoner quite strong as well. Maybe the most fascinating part for me, personally, though was Bowers's claims that Tolkien suffered an "anxiety of influence" from 19th-century medievalist Walter Skeat ... something I don't think I've ever read before, but which perfect sense for an a...

That's a wrap, folk. Our latest issue of Fafnir, volume 9, number 2 , has just been published, and that's officially my last horrah with the journal. It's been a pretty rewarding time overall . Over the course of the last five years , I've had the opportunity to work with some fantastic editors and, of course, reviewers. In fact, it's probably been working with the reviewers themselves that I'll remember best about this experience. Although I'm closing out my tenure with relief -- the burnout was starting to get to me -- I'm still immensely proud of everything we've managed to accomplish these past five years. Anyway, here are the highlights and personal accomplishments: Developing the reviews section from scratch.  We went from having 0-1 reviews per issue to about 6-11 per issue under my tenure. Ushering almost 100 reviews to publication, oftentimes through several drafts. Many reviews were from graduate students and Early Career Researchers.  Wor...

So, reading through my first-time course evals for ENG 373A. In general, I'm satisfied with them. As per usual, students found my energy and style especially appealing, and they also gave high marks to accessibility and ability to make material interesting. Nobody complained about unclear expectations. Overall, the commentary was quite positive, and several students self-reported enjoying the course highly. The complaints were also pretty standard. I still talk too fast. Unlike my freshmen course on Monsters, however, there were almost no complaints about "too much work." Still, several people offered the standard complaint about "harsh grading." (This remark, which also tanks my ratemyprofessor score, continues to confound me, as 70% of my students got A's or B's. Historically, I'm pretty sure at least some of these complainers have actually gotten A's in the course overall. I struggle to come up with an explanation that don't sound like an ...

It's well-known that Tolkien pronounced his name tol- keen , not tol- kin  (like most Americans do) ... but here's a conundrum. Did he emphasize the first syllable, or the second? In other words, TOLL -keen or toll- KEEN ? Reading Bowers's Tolkien's Lost Chaucer , which is fantastic, and he says that he confirmed that the accent's on the second syllable through people who worked with him. (His first source was Reynolds Price's Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back , 2009), and then he confirmed Tolkien's supervisee V. A. Kolve.  However, in CS Lewis's essay "The Alliterative Meter," he clearly puts the accent on the first syllable. The line goes like this (the capitals belong to Lewis): "We were TALKing of DRAGONS | TOLkien and I". So, Tol -keen. I'm going with Lewis here for now, because part of me has really never cared about proper pronunciation. So, personally, I'll keep saying Tolk- kin, like a good 'Murican. Sti...

So, last year, the facebook page for the Southern California CSL Society asked if any scholars would like to present at their monthly meetings. Since I had just finished some work on Lewis, I emailed the fellow and we set something. Then it got delayed from double-booking, and then delayed again. They mentioned maybe doing something in September -- i.e. two months ago -- but never contacted me. I forgot about the whole thing and only remembered the other day. So I contacted the point person, who responded with an annoyingly brief and unapologetic message. He also asked what I'd be talking on ... when that had already been established last year. Scrolling down four message would have answered that question. So I just deleted the whole thread and said the hell with them. I only made the offer in the first place they their society specifically asked for scholars, but I really don't want to waste my time with an unprofessional group.

Well, fate has conspired to force me to do several blog posts of late. This one ended up being a hassle, too. As Awards Administrator for the Mythopoeic Society, I'm in charge in shipping out the Aslans -- i.e. the trophies -- to that year's recipients. This year the ordeal took me two (2) trips to the trophy store, two (2) trips to the Post Office, and four (4) trips to FedEx for a whole host of reasons. .... mainly because the trophy store screwed up the first time around, and I didn't catch the error until later. (Then also because FedEx is good at packaging items for international shipment, but the Post Office has drastically cheaper rates.) Long story short, however: the Aslans are now shipped! Three of them international, two of them domestic. The only thing left is for me to get reimbursement. Also, I learned (slightly too late) that I can use my UA English Department's FedEx account to get huge discounts on various services. Well, now I know for next year.