The weight of facts

In public discourse and in personal stances, it seems to me that we (myself included) misrepresent (or misunderstand) the weight of empirical, factual evidence in the equation that leads us to take up particular stances. We (the West, let's say) tend to think that opinions are only legit if they can be proven clearly and objectively.

We think that, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure we all have some opinions that exist before we know whether the facts objectively, clearly (ignoring the question of the possibility of objectivity for now), support those opinions.

But the currency we value most is exactly that objectivity, so we attribute to ourselves a certainty that is impossible. (This is not a calculated maneuver; it happens almost automatically.)

My reason for making this observation is to make the arguement that we need to take emotion and conviction seriously, because we're all already relying on them to a large extent. The ancient rhetoricians made room for this in their analyses of persuasion, and so should we.

Illustrative Example:
Congressman Joe Wilson famously accused President Obama of lying during Wednesday's address to Congress. Obama said his plan won't give free care to illegal aliens, Wilson shouted "that's a lie!" It wasn't a lie. (See Olberman-- among others-- for an explanation of how clearly the President was not lying.) The facts bear this out.

I want to suggest that even though the objective facts prove that Wilson was wrong, we still need to take into account his stance.

I'm not saying we need to cozy up to him and volunteer to be his buddy on the next congressional field trip. What I am saying is that even though Wilson's action on Wednesday was based in emotion, not fact, that does not mean that we should dismiss it. Emotion is *real* to the person experiencing it. And if we are to hold out any hope of persuading those with whom we disagree, it behooves us to listen to facts and emotions.

If we don't acknowledge the weight of emotion in such cases, I think we just end up preaching to the choir.

Even if it is Sunday.

First day of school

I am happy to report that I made it through the first day of classes without incident. In fact, it was a really productive day. I only have one class on MWF, but I was on campus for a full day of work.

Even though I'm only one day into my career as a tenure-track faculty member, I can already tell that I'm going to need some new strategies for managing my time. I found it pretty straightforward to manage my time while I was dissertating-- if not prepping for teaching, I was (or should have been) working on the diss. Teaching required day-to-day planning; dissertating required longer-term planning and reassessing. I became adept at balancing the short-term with the one long-term project.

Now, though, I have a host of different time frames. The teaching frame is still familiar, though I am teaching one entirely new course (designed by me!). I have to get the writing center up and running (which requires recruiting new tutors, designing training, thinking about work study vs part time budgeting). I need to revise dissertation chapters and send out for publication. I have service commitments (which are mercifully low right now as I get used to things). And more that aren't even occurring to me right now. Some things need to be done today, some next week, some require frequent attention in order to be done by the end of the year. I'm not going to try to keep track of all of this in my head.

I'm planning to revisit David Allen's Getting Things Done. I read the book two years ago, when I was in the middle of dissertating. I wrote about it here. I found bits and pieces useful at the time, but a full-scale implementation wasn't feasible or necessary then. It might be just what I need now, though.

Done and done.

As I've mentioned on my facebook and Twitter, my dissertation director signed off on my revisions today. I'll drop a copy off at the grad school tomorrow to review for formatting. Once that is checked, I'll print it on fancy paper and turn it in.

It's a little unreal-- I wrote a dissertation. The whole thing. And it's interesting.

As I've been revising, I've also been preparing for my move to Oklahoma. (Go ahead, sing the song. I know you want to.) I don't think I've mentioned it here, but I have a tenure-track job as as assistant professor of English at the University of Science and Arts at Oklahoma. It's a small liberal arts college about 40 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. I'm really excited about it-- it seems like the kind of environment where I will thrive. It will be very different from the other colleges where I've been, though.

Undergrad: Ohio State 60,000 students
Masters: U of Akron 20,000 students
PhD: U of New Hampshire 14,000 students

Faculty: USAO 900 students.

I've also been spending time finding a place to live. I had initially planned to take a trip out there to look at places in person, but I had a hard time justifying that expense. I did lots of research online (one of the faculty at USAO pointed me toward hotpads.com, which I highly recommend for anyone looking for apartments) and made liberal use of Google Maps Street View to get a look at the neighborhoods of apartments I was considering. I found a place that looks pretty nice. Out in OK, 6-month leases are pretty common, so I've signed up for one of those, which will give me flexibility if I want to relocate.

Post-defense

I had the great fortune to sit down with six brilliant and generous professors for 2 hours today. I have loved my committee; their various strenghts have really helped me craft the dissertation I defended today.

I have a few revisions that I need to address before I can submit the diss to the grad school. All of the committee members signed off on the diss except my director, with whom I will follow through on the changes. I'm excited for the revisions-- the discussion today helped me see that I was not making the most use of my data. I need to incorporate those expansions an revise the conclusion accordingly.

It's midnight now. I have a cat on my lap and a vodka tonic on the table. I have time, now, to think about the future. It is a luxury.

Consumer capitalism vs. feminism

I was in Walmart earlier today, in the express line behind a thin, tall, high-school aged guy. The cashier scanned his bottle of vitamins, then asked for some ID. He said he didn't have any, so the cashier voided the item. I don't know exactly what was in the bottle, but the packaging was shiny gray, black and red. I'm guessing it was some kind of muscle-building supplement.

The cashier rang up the other two items: Men's Health magazine and Hawiian Tropic tanning oil.

Based on these three items, I created this guy's story-- young, thin, insecure about his body given the muscled messages he sees in the media. Wants to be bigger, stronger, and tanner.

It reminded me of myself at 16-- buying Seventeen magazine, Cover Girl eyeshadows, and cans of Slim-Fast.



Somehow, this isn't the equality we should want.

Segregated prom-- 2009

Via Jezebel, a NYT piece on this year's segregated prom.

The senior proms held by Montgomery County High School students — referred to by many students as “the black-folks prom” and “the white-folks prom” — are organized outside school through student committees with the help of parents. All students are welcome at the black prom, though generally few if any white students show up. The white prom, students say, remains governed by a largely unspoken set of rules about who may come. Black members of the student council say they have asked school administrators about holding a single school-sponsored prom, but that, along with efforts to collaborate with white prom planners, has failed.

As I've been revising my dissertation, I've revisited a number of articles that fall under the broad category of Critical Race Theory. The pieces I've been looking at seem to put forth one of the following two arguments (some directly, some implicitly):

- most whites are well-meaning and non-racist in intent, and believe that racism is gradually receding over time, but are generally unaware of systemic racism that continues to privilege whites over nonwhites.

or

- racism (overt and hidden) is just as alive and thriving as ever. The notion that things "aren't as bad as they used to be" is incorrect and distracting from the problems that exist.


Though I come across more examples of the first argument, the examples of the second argument leave me almost speechless. The segregated prom is one of those.

Job market advice

Collin has posted the job market advice handout he shares with his grad students. It's a great resource.

Go here for the pdf.

Intent/effect

Just came across another example of intent/effect in action. This blog entry is a couple of years old; I came across it when researching the controversy over the Clevleand Indians and Chief Wahoo.

From the entry:

So many folks still not getting it, eh? Sports fans’ claims to honorable intentions of the use of “Indian” imagery, intentions of being pro-”Indian,” do not dismiss nor outweigh the disrespectful effects that many native peoples experience. An example of one of those effects? Ironically, many pro-”Indian” mascot/logo/image critics verbally attack the real Native peoples who call for the eradication of such “Indian” representations. so, those critics honor their “Indian” images and “Indian” objects, their “Indians,” but they disrespect and dislike the real natives?

I'm excited to see other people interested in this distinction between intent and effect.

Do you watch Psych?

If you were born in the mid- to late- 70s, and you have a soul, you will probably find it as hilarious as my friend Leah and I do.

The two main characters are private investigators (of a sort) and in this clip, they're undercover in an American Idol-esque show. They end up reprising the duet they did in their elementary school talent show.

Enjoy!

Rhet/Comp Feminism listserv

I pulled this off the WPA:

From: Barbara L'Eplattenier

(Please feel free to crosspost/forward/distribute widely)


This year at C's, a number of scholars interested in feminism/gender
issues/rhetcomp issues realized there's no dedicated listserv to offer
people a place to connect.


As a result, The Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and
Composition and the CCCC Feminist Workshop have created
Rhetcompfem@cwshrc.org, a new listserv.  We hope this listserv will connect
feminist scholars in Rhetoric and Composition, as well as other scholars in
other disciplines. (We're going for inclusion, here, and the more the
merrier.)


It is an unmoderated listserv and we'd like to keep it that way, so please,
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