The Aftermath

Dear All,

So "Reply All" beats the blog hands down (by a score of roughly 30 to 7 by my estimation)!

I had a group of about 30 students yesterday morning (it seems unfortunate that I had so many especially since I know of at least two people who had no students all!). I would estimate that about two-thirds of them had engaged with the book at some point along a spectrum of read-a-couple-of-essays to read-the-whole-book.

A number of the students started with the book in much the same way as I did, which is to say that they struggled through the first essay and stopped reading the second essay after a few pages. Unfortunately, many of them gave up at this point while I just skipped to the next essay. (Perhaps if the students had been given the book and asked to read, at least: 13, 1977, 21; Speak Hoyt-Schermerhorn, and The Beards we would have had a more complete common ground).

A few of the students had read the whole book and many of the students had interesting things to say about Lethem's relationship to his mother and the his use of collecting and obsession as a way of grieving (or not grieving). One student was quite upset with Lethem for not, in her view, "grieving properly." We discussed some issues around repeated exposure to particular art objects (does one student's repeated viewing of Billy Madison count here?), issues of what you do when a text is referring to people/works etc. that you don't know, defining oneself through allegiance to objects/works.

I had a grand time.

And I found out that it is possible to find a group of thirty college students none of whom have ever even heard of Blade Runner.

By my reckoning the experience was valuable and would have been even more so had a subgroup of the essays been chosen for the students to read.

Thank you organisers. See you next year.

Yours,

Michael

Reading & Re-Searching

Early on Janet noted the possibility of our students coming to the discussion without having read the book. Perhaps some of the unfamiliarity of the language (the recent thread of our conversation) will contribute to their giving up (for those who do open the book and give it a go). Then, of course, there will be those who will barely crack the book, by habit, because of time constraints, etc., and those who will read it through and may or may not enjoy the “pleasant bafflement” Fred finds as one fruit of the reader’s efforts. (Gotta agree with Donna here. A great phrase.)

I can’t help but recall a bit of a debate that ensued in an English class when I was an undergraduate (here). A professor (I can’t quite remember which one and wouldn’t want to name him or her if I did since they all, believe it or not, have not yet retired) complained of a student habit of looking in a book index to find the needed pages of information, rather than reading a book through every time a book is chosen from a shelf.

Well, I gave up on being an English major after two years of grad school and became a librarian instead. And guess what? Want to know a secret about librarians? Librarians LOVE an index. We thrive on using any tool that lets us pluck out of a crowded sea of words just the few that we need, the few that will answer our questions.

In fact, a recent Booklist blog, a blog intended for librarians, discusses the dark little secret Pierre Bayard reveals in an essay, “How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read” (http://link.ixs1.net/s/lt?id=y271869&si=l98451041&pc=j2022&ei=t135379)

Librarians are experts at not reading books (And you always thought all we did was sit around all day and read books. Right.) You might say that librarians are the grown up versions of those students who won’t read what is assigned, but I don’t think that is true. Most librarians love to read. We are just facing time management issues and find that reading about a book or reading parts of a book can often be more efficient for us, or more on point for us, depending on our need, than reading a book.

But back to our students here. No one ever doubts that Brooklyn College students are pressed for time. And no one doubts that they live in a world of disembodied text, where traveling by a web of hyperlinks is the norm. Linear reading is for the dinosaurs. Book chapters, paragraphs, sentences, words have all jumped out of the bindings and make themselves available through google keyword searching. Does anyone read the “whole thing” any more? Can we even identify the “whole thing” with so much content nowadays?

So we accept that our students read things piecemeal and recognize that we have to work with it as a factor. So here we are, ready to be their “professors-for-one-hour,” and wonder how demanding we can be.

Do we want to anonymously pole the students before the lesson and find out if they’ve read the book? Do we take the tact that if they haven’t read the book, we can teach something about the book by starting with the reviews in the front and on the back cover and then move on to the painting of the author and figure out what that is all about?

Starting with the reviews is interesting because it may be where we want students to competently go after they master readings of primary sources. So what’s the big deal if we work it in reverse?

One of the real teaching tools I see in approaching a book like Lethem’s is that the richness of cultural content cries out for a lesson on doing research, for a lesson on how to learn more about a primary source. And isn’t that where we want our students to be heading? Isn’t the number one competency we hope they gain from their four years of college the ability to think critically, to figure things out?

In fact, when Lethem sets out to defend “The Searchers,” he becomes a model for the thinker as a researcher. Lethem views the primary source multiple times (picture the undergraduate reviewing for an exam), interviews people to gather opinions (true for many undergraduates and inescapable for our social scientists), seeks out expert opinion when he speaks to the film professor, goes on field trips, reads secondary sources. Can we find a better model than that for how to do research, how to be a searcher yourself?

I wish everyone of use great success in what is purported to be the teaching of the first book each of our freshmen will read (or not read) for college.

So many books. So little time.

From the Library,

Beth

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Jonathan Lethem, a film deal, open access, and promiscuous materials

Hello everyone!

I was looking at Jonathan Lethem's website, and also at a few comments that have been made about an interesting proposal he has for the film rights for a project of his. He's a huge supporter of open access and freedom of information, and I thought this group might be interested in what he is planning for "You Don't Love Me Yet." I can't explain it as well as he does, so I'm just going to share the URL - http://jonathanlethem.com/freelove.html . Also check out his Promiscuous Materials Project at http://jonathanlethem.com/promiscuous_materials.html

Stephanie

discussion topics---suggestions

I think that we can't expect all freshmen to be familiar with all the cultural references in this book, but we can certainly use the topics Lethem discusses as starting points for general discussions. I plan to ask my group about a movie, book, painting that they've revisited many times---why? what was different about it each time? what drew you back?
I also thought there were topics that could generate group discussion--- the subway platform description; the changing neighborhood; the dynamics of certain friendships; the role of a "beard."
And I also hope to ask students to comment on certain quotes from the essays: the concept of "friendships-as-auditions-for-self" (137); "the disappointment artist was me" (142).

Last year, I had a group of about 20, and only 2 had read the book. We ended up talking about college in general, and it was certainly more of an orientation to college than a book discussion. I hope for better results this time around. But I also feel that there are essays in the book that students will not be able to comment on---particularly the Dahlberg and Cassavetes pieces. I plan to skip these with the students.
Janet

A few thoughts

Dear All,

A few thoughts going through my head:
What do people plan to do about the issue of students who haven't read much/any of the book? How did this go last year?

Wasn't the "Speak Hoyt-Schermerhorn" essay good?

Does anyone, let alone Brooklyn College freshpersons, watch John Cassavettes films anymore?

How many people can we expect in our groups?


Yours,

Michael