Do Like Carson

Hey - check out Carson's introduction over at Blog Cabin. Of course that's what you all need to do, and I'm glad Carson assigned it. So please: introduce yourself.  You can do it over the weekend, but before Wednesday.

Here's me: I'm in my 11th year, now, as a professor at MSU. Before that, I taught for four years at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. I did my graduate work at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I lived for ten years. As of a few months ago, I've lived in Montana longer than anywhere else in my adult life (which would never work as a slogan if I were running for public office here).  I've ended up teaching since I was a freshman at Marquette University, where I tutored students at the Milwaukee Urban Day School - since then, I've taught at MSU, KU, UW, I've taught adult literacy at the Goodwill Community Literacy Center in Seattle, Adult Basic Education at a vocational school, I ran a writing workshop in a county jail in Lawrence, Kansas for two years, and I taught for a year at a Christian university (Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana) in the center of Java in the most Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, as a Fulbright Scholar, two years ago. I like teaching, and my scholarship has mostly been about teaching, focused in large part on literacy studies - I'm especially interested in the ways the idea of literacy works rhetorically (it's always good, for the most part; put the word 'literacy' in front of something, and everyone thinks it is wonderful. You can get away with a lot if you use the right words...) One thing I've had to learn from teaching in so many places is that you better have a back-up plan, because what works in one setting never works quite the same way in another.

You met one of my heckling children, Graham. His older brother Seamus would have heckled me too. My wife Laura has also been known to heckle me. The point is, I can take it, so heckle away...

My scholarship now is on the history of the literacy test as an obstacle to vote (another place where the idea of literacy managed to prop up a deeply racist method of disfranchisement). I also write about the history of the Highlander Folk School (which is now the Highlander Research and Education Center) and I've been trying to write about my year in Indonesia - that's been harder, though.

I've always loved teaching about rhetorical theory. Rhetoric provides a unique window on language as a tool of action, as a way of getting things done. As soon as you let go of the idea that language can ever be an accurate representation of reality, every single thing that gets put into words ends up getting slippery. Rhetoric provides a magnificent way of engaging the paradoxes language lives in. I'm almost certain to enjoy myself this semester - I'll try to make it as pleasant as possible for you too.

I look forward to reading your introductions!