Moving

Moving

Although I am moving across the country to start a doctoral program in English, and I am experiencing all the challenges and rewards that come with such a move after living in one place for thirty-two years, what I am really moving into is my own skin. Have you ever had a moment where you felt you were nearing the destination of you? You were not nearing a last destination, an end, or even a beginning, but a place off the number line and free from the x and y axis of things as they had been.

The first time I experienced disorientation from my norm was during my time as an undergrad at Berkeley. Although drawn to unfamiliar territory, I was at times wary about letting go of my anchors, compass, and habitual ways of walking this world. Of course, I did not nor will I now cast all I understand away, but I am eager to move closer to me, which means challenging what I understand.

Moving through thirty-two years of stuff--deciding what to give away, donate, recycle, and take--is challenging, but not moving through stuff is like walking by a book and leaving it unopened: a crime.

Fall 2010 has been filled with thoughtful questions from my students in my two critical thinking courses, my two discursive courses, and my one developmental writing course. My students have been working with, among many other things, eighteenth-century travel literature, lexicography, sentence structure, how an author's purpose and audience shape an author's writing choices, and how Johnathan Swift's proposer in A Modest Proposal uses logical fallacies. I am going to miss these classes.

I continue to work on several projects that explore aspects of national and cultural identity in the eighteenth century. Editing work remains one of my interests as I continue to enjoy my work as the University Thesis and Dissertation editor and my work as a foundation communications editor. Although I do not look forward to saying good-bye to my classes, I do look forward to the promise of time the holiday break holds for my own scholarship and, if I am lucky, some time outside on my bike, in the frigid Pacific on my bodyboard, in the mountains on my snowshoes, and some time with friends and family around copious hot cups.

Summer is long gone, but I still enjoy working with the treasures I found at the University of Louisiana, Shreveport, where I had a summer fellowship with the outstanding Noel Collection. I fell in love with Louisiana because of the people and the land. I also taught three classes during the summer one of which was an upper-division course in the neo-classical tradition. I enjoyed a summer of rare books, alligators, thunder storms, Plato, Socrates, Horace, Longinus and the gang along with Dryden, Pope, Johnson, and the Club.

Now that I have successfully denied the onset of fall by enjoying the crisp air, gray skies setting off orange leaves, the return of ocean swells, and eating pomegranates, I am sad to say good-bye to fall. This was a good fall. I had the privilege of teaching to upper-division discursive writing courses this fall at California State University, East Bay and two critical thinking courses at Las Positas College. I look forward to keeping in touch with my students. This fall I also had the opportunity to attend the East-Central American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Conference.

http://www.lehigh.edu/~inlhgi/annualmeeting/index.html

I gave a paper: “With Anger, Zeal and Love: Samuel Johnson on the Inutility of Useful Passion.” What I enjoy about regional conferences is the feedback I receive on my continuing projects, and this conference did not disappoint. The paper is a section of a larger project, and I always benefit from feedback. Opportunities abounded this fall; in October I participated in the Colonial Peru Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific Perspectives Colloquium, hosted by University of Wisconsin, Madison, at which I gave a paper: “How Peru Comes to Signify in English Eighteenth-Century Print.”

http://spanport.lss.wisc.edu/Peru/presenters/ireland.htm

I received useful feedback, and made some new friends. This was the first time I took my work on how Peru comes to signify in eighteenth-century print to scholars outside of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies national and regional conferences. I met wonderful people and fell in love with the campus. I am fickle because my work with the eighteenth century has taken me across the country and to Canada, and I fall in love with all these places.

I am looking forward to a winter of playing in the white water—the waves are too big for my lack of skill with my body board, riding my bike in the early morning cold followed by hot peppermint tea, playing Scrabble via the Internet with my niece in Spain, and working on several projects. As for teaching, I will have to wait and see what shakes out in the land of Furloughs.

Ready, Set, Go Summer!

I am looking forward to a summer of research, writing, teaching, body boarding, cycling, hiking, gardening and playing with technology.

This summer I am giving a presentation at the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) International Conference:

Regular Session (30 minutes):An Open
Invitation: Creating Universal Access with YouTube Videos Track: Track 1:
Innovations in Online Teaching and Learning Presenters: Dale Ireland

Using technology to foster universal
access in online classrooms allows students access to the curriculum, to one
another and to the instructor. YouTube videos offer unique opportunities, while
also posing distinct challenges because the videos are rarely created with
universal access in mind. This session explores how to use such videos, ensuring
that they are universally accessible, so that students have greater access to
one another, the curriculum and the instructor. <http://mic09.merlot.org/program/index.php?sort=date&date=2009-08-15>

During the spring quarter at CSUEB I was part of a Teaching and Learning Faculty Learning Community. I was lucky to work under the leadership of Professor Rafael Hernandez and with a group of innovative faculty. I was able to share what I learned from the learning community at the 12 Annual CSU Regional Symposium on University Teaching, at which I gave a presentation titled "Not Your Grandmother's YouTube: Using YouTube to Create Universal Access" http://www.ctl.calpoly.edu/symposium/index.html . My presentation at MERLOT will be a continuation of my work on using YouTube in the classroom, which now includes teaching students how to make their class related YouTube publications universally accessible.

I will be finishing two book reviews, one article and several conference papers this summer. My summer will keep me close to Samuel Johnson and eighteenth-century Peru. I will spend one week in New Hampshire with my sister and her family, which should put a skip into my step.

I am looking forward to my summer classes and the joys that come with summer teaching: warm weather and fresh summer fruit during class breaks, at which I have a chance to chat with students about their other classes, work, families and communities.

Ah, summer!

Montreal 2008

In spite of an irritating cold, I enjoyed myself at the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference in Montreal. I heard an insightful plenary given by Jack Lynch: "All Shall Yield to the Mulberry Tree: Of Toothpick Cases, Punch Ladles, Tobacco Stoppers, Inkstands, Nutmeg Graters, and the Legend of Shakespeare." I also heard fine papers.

One of the joys of teaching online is that when you get invigorated by a paper you can share your enthusiasm immediately with your students. I also came home with knew ideas about texts to bring into my classrooms and ways to use them.

I was able to spend time with Jack, Laura and their good friend Chris. We took in walks, shared meals and enjoyed the city. Sean and I enjoyed our time with our friends, including our table mates at the conference's Saturday banquet.

I gave a paper, "Samuel Johnson’s Distancing Antiquity through the New World," Saturday morning, and we flew home Sunday, Oct. 19th.

Last day of July

My summer is a mix of body boarding in the Pacific, working on several consulting and writing projects, teaching two classes at California State University, East Bay and time with my family. I always intend for the summer to be slower paced than the academic year, but I always fill it with neglected projects (e.g., conference papers, book reviews or a new job) and with teaching. Although my summer is full, it is full with what I love.

A Bit of This and That

Since my last entry I have given the following poster presentation and paper:

“Faculty Learning Communities Program: Office of Faculty Development California State university, East bay” Poster Presentation, Co-presenters, Eileen Barrett, Jsh Guo, Jane Lpous, Mitch Watnik, California State University Symposium on University Teaching, Cal Poly Pomona, 2008.

"Samuel Johnson on Beer: A National Concern" American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Portland, 2008.

My two spring classes, one online, at Las Positas College have ended and my two classes at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) are winding down this week. I will be teaching at CSUEB this summer and designing an online course. I am also working on several writing projects, one of which involves a service learning: "The Community Literacy Project" http://www.calstate.edu/cce/news_pubs/csu_impact/052908.html that I have been working on for eight years. I was lucky enough to work with a the Faculty Learning Community (FLC) for Community Based and Service Learning as I developed a new library track for this project. The faculty in our FLC supported and contributed to the development of my service learning project and my development as an academic.

On the celebration list is my niece who just earned her AA and who will be transferring to Cal State in the fall.

I am looking forward to a productive summer balanced by a lot of playtime.