Julie Crawford

Finals officially started today! That’s pretty scary. To get you through, Bwog is seeking the advice of some people who won college—namely, your professors. In today’s Actual Wisdom, we talked to English professor Julie Crawford of Fall 2011 Literary Texts and Critical Methods fame.

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer: All my professional verbs—read, teach, write, argue, advise, organize—are collaborative, so you’re all implicated.

Claim to fame: I make a fine Pimm’s cup.

What’s your most valuable or unexpected college experience? Working on a crisis line. I was on call the night of the 1989 Montreal Massacre, in which a man shot and killed 14 women at the École Polytechnique. Everything changed that day – in the city, in public consciousness and discourse, in my own life. Among the many things I learned in the immediate aftermath were how to think about the relationship between what I had been studying and the real time events of the world, and, more importantly, how to talk about that relationship.

What’s the craziest student excuse/extension story you’ve heard? I fell in love and my eyes couldn’t read.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese or tenure? To quote Bill Clinton, I did not have sex with that Beemster. Now let’s see if they fire me for lying.

Back in my day… The air was clean, books were free, and the president was a woman of color.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

1. You can get from Philosophy Hall to 116th St. by going through the basement of Kent.

2. Ego knows no bounds.

3. Reading in dialogue with others is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

What’s your advice to students/academics/the human race in general? Bring your own bags. Read it first. Think about the impact on other people of everything you buy, both literally and figuratively. And never, ever, wear Uggs.

Portrait via columbia.edu

Graphic representation of "American Exceptionalism," from the English Department's website.

On July 3^rd, 1776, the inhabitants of the American colonies were British. The next day, they were American. Their writing, however—what we now call “American literature”—did not appear quite so suddenly. English Professor Ezra Tawil tackled the issue last night in a lecture entitled “American Exceptionalism and the Question of Style,” along with Department bigwigs Andrew Delbanco and Ross Posnock. Bwog All Things American Specialist Sam Schube sat in on the fun.

The title, “American Exceptionalism and the Question of Style,” makes Tawil’s point of view pretty clear. The phrase conjures images of flag-waving, democracy-touting capital-p Patriots. As Tawil duly noted, the mere mention of American exceptionalism in academia is “cause for disciplinary embarrassment.” Nationalist literature is at best passé, and at worst offensive. Is it possible that our national literature is no longer relevant?

We’ll get to that. First, Tawil, whose forthcoming book addresses the issue, explained the conditions, stakes, and process of Amerilit’s birth. Early citizens, Tawil said, were saddled with a cultural imperative: the creation of a national character, an established way of being American. Usually, this works the other way around. The British, having spent a good deal of time being British, over time came to write in a distinctly British manner. Americans, however, had no clear identity on Independence Day #1, except one of opposition to their former king.

Read more…

The computer strikes again; the English Department sponsored conference “The History of Reading and Reading Processes” examines how word processing has changed the way that authors write and the way that scholars and fans obsess. Daily Editor Liz Naiden was tempted to bring a typewriter to the keynote speech in 523 Butler.

Long-time blogger and resident English Dept. Austen specialist Jenny Davidson would be the one to organize a conference that opened with a discussion of belles lettres and closed with a guide to stalking your favorite authors in the digital age. If you want to learn about Jane Austen’s writing process, you use one of the good old fashioned libraries that keep copies of her original drafts and correspondence. But if you want to sift through Salmon Rushdie’s drafts, correspondence, and personal life and you’re persistent, you’ll find a mid-90’s windows laptop or two staring you in the face.

The question is, what do we as literary scholars (ahem, Facebook stalkers) do with such an artifact? Matthew Kirschenbaum of the University of Maryland delivered the keynote speech of the conference on this and other issues surrounding the study and maintenance of what he calls “born-digital media,” meaning anything, including a draft of a manuscript, that is created on a computer.

The idea of composing on a word processor has been a strange one since the beginning, when the first personal word processing machine, called “The Wang,” hit the scene in 1976. Though it seems that he refrained from making the obvious joke, Steven King wrote often on the absurdity and fascination of this new way of writing, where one could delete things and they would not just be crossed out or put aside, but simply disappear. In his 1983 story “Word Processor of the Gods,” King envisions a world where deleting a sentence on the divine machine not only deletes it from the document, but deletes the idea, object, or person described from the world entirely.

Read more…

Well, not you specifically, but people you may know. New York Magazine interviewed seniors Bryan Reid, Sam Reisman, and Jesse Horwitz about the best spots around Columbia. Establishments mentioned include Max Caffe (“Hang, Read, and Drink Coffee”) 1020 (“Pickup Spot”) La Negrita (“The Happening Bar”[?]) and Roti Roll (“Late-Night Munchies”).

The Observer, on the other hand, reports much heavier news. English Department heavy-hitter James Shapiro has canceled his legendary seminar “The Book Review,” which aimed to teach future literary critics the art of professional reviewing. Shapiro feels that the downsizing of book review departments and the Internet Age have nearly destroyed the opportunities for young and unknown reviewers to get paid for their work. Thank goodness Amazon reviews the finer things in life.

Just a quick note that Michael Mallick and the good people at the English Department have begun posting admit lists for Spring 2009 seminars. Complete list should be up by Tuesday.

The deadline to apply to most history seminars was about an hour ago, but expect announcements about admit lists anytime up until next semester.

If you know any important dates regarding other departments’ seminars and their corresponding waiting game, email us (bwog@columbia.edu) or just use the comment thread.

Good luck!

The school year has ended and next fall many professors will be packing their bags and leaving behind their Metrocards for the greener pastures of other universities — Yale, in particular, seems to be popular among Columbia’s professorial population. (Another way professors are just like us!) Bwog’s rounded up some arrivals and departures of your beloved faculty, but let us know who we missed and we’ll update the post. 

David Kastan, the chair of the English Department and Edward Said Professor of English and Comparative Literature is heading to New Haven. 

Noam Elcott will be joining the Art History Department as an assistant professor. Bonus fun fact: Elcott was The Blue and White’s first moder editor (in 1998), following its 100 year hiatus. 

Also heading to Yale is the Music Department’s Brian Kane, who was at CU for a post-doctorate teaching fellowship.

Owen Gutfreund, responding to the University’s decision not to grant him tenure, announced in January that he was uncertain whether he would remain at Columbia (as an associate professor of urban studies and director of BC/CU Urban Studies Programs) after this spring. A quick glance at the course directory reveals that Gutfreund will not be teaching any Fall 2008 classes.

Lit Hum lecturer Jill Muller did not receive a contract renewal

Say goodbye to Annalies Wouters of Classics

Another loss for the Music Department as Ruth Rosenberg heads to the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Professor of Political Science Thomas Pogge is headed to Yale’s Philosophy Department (if you’re keeping score, that’s three for Yale).

Philosophy professor and YouTube user Christia Mercer is taking a sabbatical, as is Bwog’s inamorato, the Abelard to our Heloise, the Antony to our Cleopatra, English and Comp. Lit professor Bruce Robbins. 

Next school year marks the beginning of Barnard’s hunger-striking Professor of Political Science Dennis Dalton‘s retirement.

Philosophy professors/married persons Patricia and Philip Kitcher return from sabbatical, the later of whom will be teaching Michael Seidel’s Joyce course in the fall.