Issue #147 - The Spaces in Between
Red-eye Nights
Hello Everyone, I hope that you’re all well. It’s been a busy week, I arrived home from San Francisco on Monday morning after attending the MLA conference.
Taking the red-eye is a strange thing, leaving late at night and arriving early next morning. It was noticeably colder as I got off the plane, although the weather hasn’t been great so far this year, damp and rainy. At least I seemed to escape the worst of the storm hitting the west coast, causing flash floods and landslides. I was wondering, especially in Oregon where there were forest fires, whether there was increased risk of mud and landslides where the trees were burned and the vegetation hasn’t grown back yet.
We’re seeing the effects of climate change, which is an emergency that we must do something about. I have to take responsibility, especially for all those air miles I clock up, I only wish I could take trains or long distance busses. I need to have a rethink, I’ve come around to thinking that offsetting isn’t effective, something more is needed.
Like I say, it was rainy in San Francisco, but it didn’t matter too much spending most of my time in the conference center and hotel, some of the meeting rooms deep underground with no windows. The only sign that it was raining was someone walking into the room soaked, or wrestling with a broken umbrella.
This week, some of the extra-curricular activities and visits I managed to find time for, prep for the new semester and some future plans.
Stephan
Spaces to Connect
This was the first time attending the MLA conference, I’m still finding out about the different networks and professional bodies that help shape development and support teachers here in the states. MLA is big, busy and hosts hundreds of talks, panels and workshops. I attended with my Head of Department which was rather nice to spend time with her, and a few other colleagues presenting or visiting. We had a lovely meal together on the Thursday night, and remarked on how few occasions we get to meet and chat.
It’s because the conference is so big, that you can choose particular tracks, and I found myself in sessions focused on the role of the Humanities in HE, and also presentations and panels exploring anti-racist, multi-literate and multimodal pedagogies. I have lots of articles, books and websites to peruse over.
In a few talks on the Humanities, panels discussed the concept of skills, which is something that I find interesting. Some believe that talk of skills devalues the value of a literary or critical education, but there was a call to not be so squeamish about this term, that the problem is a narrow definition of skills as practical or task-based. I don’t have any issue with that, I think it boils down to metacognition, do students really know how deep their learning goes, do they just see skills as something that will aid employability. I often think humanities and creative learning is about the long-game, students don’t often realize the value of what their learning, especially so-called soft skills until much later, maybe even years after they graduate.
What everyone seemed to agree on, was that the Humanities need to do more to promote their value to students and parents. It made me think a little about the difference in rhetoric between liberal and more conservative groups, where it is often very difficult to discuss nuance, especially within the framework of capitalism, which is often binary, lacks empathy, and is uncaring. The binary I’m most wary of is between arts and sciences, humanities and STEM, which is reductionist to say the least. Smart students don’t see things like that anymore, art students code, coders design characters for games, chemists read Dostoyevsky, musicians can rewire synthesizers and make instruments from circuits. Come on now.
Life Lessons
Towards the end of the week, my brain started to flag, so my attendance wavered a little and rather than do some of the later, evening sessions I took some time to visit a few places that I’d wanted to go to in San Francisco.
The first of these was 826 Valencia which I have previously written about in issue 56. It was great to see the place, it is an after-school program devised and founded by educator Nínive Calegari and author Dave Eggers, that to adhere to building code, has a store front, in this case a Pirate Supply Store, with a range of eyepatches, wooden legs and hooks, books, jewels, strange ephemera and a fish tank theatre. I picked up a few bits, a t-shirt, unicorn horn lip balm, and a few copies of the quarterly, written and published by the students of 826 Valencia.
If you’re ever near one of these stores, you should visit, because there are now more of them all over the country, from Super Hero Supply Store to Time Travel Mart, and I only wish that I was near enough to volunteer in one, maybe I’ll find time to this anyway in a library or school.
On the Saturday afternoon I broke away and visited Japantown, established by Japanese immigrants and their descendants in the early 1860’s. There are gift shops, restaurants, hardware stores and supermarkets, the streets around even look Japanese, apartment buildings, hotels, all within a few blocks.
It is very enjoyable, interesting and slightly discombobulating walking through Japantown with its manicured shrubbery, buildings and community spaces, as if dropped into place by helicopters and steel cables. I loved it.
I ate delicious Takoyaki, sort of fluffy dough balls with octopus, and I couldn’t resist visiting the art shop Maido, and picking up manga in Kinokuniya.
I explored more of San Francisco’s Asian heritage at the Asian Art Museum, which has incredible collections of prints, ceramics, painting and drawing from across many countries, and representing Asian-American artists both old and contemporary. There were rooms of exhibitions, two in particular that I gravitated towards, the first: Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk, an incredible vivid futuristic, fantasy, immersive experience that included animation, large scale installation, neon lights and dazzling lenticular prints. The second, must more intimate but no less impressive, an introduction to the late California-based artist Bernice Bing, whose work I wasn’t familiar with, but enjoyed so much. A series of large abstract paintings that speak to landscape, female form and the Chinese art of calligraphy and ink painting. I pinged one of my friends, Mel Rose, whose work shares a similar exploration of nature and form.
I just love wandering around a gallery, taking my time stopping to contemplate or take a seat for a few moments, galleries are meditative spaces shut off from the outside world. I though the AAM was great, loved the way it guided you through the rooms, so open and accessible. It was free btw, I happen to visit on the first Sunday of the month.
There are a photos above, but what I thought was quite fun too were links to spotify playlists for some of the featured artists. There are some gems on the one inspired by Bernice Bing, I don’t know how much Big Thief she would have listened to, but I think she would have approved.
Lost and Found
Some links for last week and some upcoming events. I scribbled in a small notebook that I just can’t find anywhere (probably at the bottom of my bag somewhere), but I did type a few things into my phone.
I had a walk around the exhibition hall and had some interesting chats with the publishers who were presenting new titles and some of the more successful publications. I picked up a reading copy of Soundwriting - A Guide to Making Audio Projects by Tanya K. Rodrigue and Kyle D. Stedman which looks really interesting and will not doubt be incredibly useful for a new project I’m undertaking this semester, more about that next week. John Guillory’s Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study was mentioned in more than one session that I attended, so I’ve put it on the list.
Year ago now I was a regular listener to Doug Belshaw and the Dai Barnes’ Today in Digital Education (TIDE) podcast. Dai sadly passed away in 2019, we’d never met but had chatted a few times online, and I loved the conversations that he had with Doug, which would slowly drift from teaching and digital learning, to life, and travel, and lots of other things that they were thinking about. It’s nice to hear Doug’s voice on the Tao of Wao with co-host Laura Hilliger, which I started listening to on the flight out to SFO. If you’re unfamiliar with either of these people, and other members of We are Open, a cooperative of thinkers and makers, then I recommend their work and suggest you take a look.
There were a couple of projects from last semester that I’m interested in exploring further and I might try and persuade the students that originated them to spend a little time polishing them up, despite the course being over and they having moved on. Some of them have the potential someday to feature in a list like this, the XRMust Awards for immersive storytelling.
So thrilled that Everything, Everywhere, all at Once is picking up awards, I think the unsung hero of the film is Shirley Kurata the incredible costume designer who created Jobu Tupaki’s incredible outfits, as well as Deirdre Beaubeirdre’s orange polo and crochet’s cardigan. I’ve seen this film a few times now and I think it is the most wonderful, strange, chaotic and touching experience I’ve had for years.
Starting today you can subscribe to My French Film Festival 2023 with lots of new titles that you can stream or download. This is always a wonderful event, the short film section is free and then it’s 8Euro for a 30-day festival pass.
Thank you
Okay, that was a bit longer than I initially thought it would be, but maybe that’s because I have a few things prepared for next week and don’t feel too rushed.
I’m hoping to get stuck into new projects this semester, I have lots of writing ahead of me, scripts, treatments and pitch decks for more funding. I’m hoping to get a bit more help from students, but I know that it is difficult for them to commit to things, still it could work out, who knows.
Let’s get together again next week and see how things are going. In the meantime take care of yourselves, if you’re a teaching colleague, then good luck and try to pace yourself this semester. A message to everyone, is that everything will be okay.