Archive for February 8th, 2007

Hey guys. I have recently (tonight) had the urge to write a syllabus for a hypothetical American Studies class that I might someday teach. I’ve never in my life had the desire to teach. I have no teaching job lined up. This just sounds like fun. And rather than waiting ’till we’re at the Lyon to collect votes on non-fiction that rocked your world and might be useful in such a class, I thought we could hammer it out here. I’m working on my list now; it includes books, films, and articles–and music if I’m smart enough to swing it.

Themes for the course could go in a million directions, and you can help me stretch myself. So, I want to hear your ideas before I post mine, ’cause I don’t want to anchor the discussion too much. But here is the one idea that got me going tonight:

I was just reading about a book that discusses the highly political film genre of zombie flicks, a film crit book with a Marxist perspective called Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture by Annalee Newitz, which would be fun with a showing of “From Night of the Living Dead: Homecoming” (in which dead Iraq war veterans return from the grave to vote against the war).

See? Isn’t this fun! As you mull this around, remember that American Studies is gender, race, class, and sexuality, especially interesting, messed up combinations and intersections thereof.

Looking forward to your posts, kids. As I texted one of you, I’m gdam excited about the mfing synergy of this blog. And whatnot.

This is how my week started. I have been moved from the art department to a cubile that is in the heart of cubicleville, USA. Damn shame really.

First, let me say that, in general, nerds are the only people that are interesting to me. Doing research, being engaged, loving life and what you do is f-ing awesome. A nerds enthusiasm rubs off on me. I try to be a nerd. I want to be a nerd. A nerd doesn’t have to be in science, technology, or any particular field. A nerd is someone that is simply doing what they do to their fullest. I digress.

The reason for this post is because I read slashdot.org: news for nerds, stuff that matters. For those that don’t read it, check it out. The site is completely user-driven. It is probably the first site that used this model; it has been around since the mid-90’s. Today, there is a post about the human genome. Two scientists have colorized patterns in the human genome to produce what I would consider art. It is a fuzz of dancing ants like you would see on your TV if it wasn’t hooked up to cable or an antenna, except it is colorized. You can see the pictures at the DNA rainbow. This is truly amazing research.

Just wanted to drop a line and say that this is a really good idea (see title).

I’ve recently been moved to a cubicle due to some office politics and i think that this will be a great way of passing the time while thinking outside the box from the inside of a box.

Of course, it’s not easy to type when your fingers are constantly hovering over the hotkey command for minimizing your window, but who needs all ten fingers to type?