My good friend JosĂ© Francisco FernĂĄndez SĂĄnchez, from the University of AlmerĂa, emails me to announce good news: the volume gathering together the complete short stories by Margaret Drabble, A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, is just out (see https://www.amazon.com/Day-Life-Smiling-Woman-Complete/dp/0547550405). Heâs the proud, happy editor. Congratulations!! JosĂ© Francisco includes in his message a link to a radio interview with Drabble, in which the volumeâs publication is discussed (https://www.npr.org/2011/04/24/135611071/stories-of-changing-english-life-in-smiling-woman). A delighted Drabble explains that âHe wrote to me and he said, âIâve assembled all your storiesâ (…) and he edited the text, and he’d just done it out of pure love. (…). It was a bit like a fairy story, to find a handsome young man who really loved your work and wanted to see it in print.â I must smile, for he is handsome âand this is a fact, not an opinion. And yes, I can imagine how she must have felt, getting this marvellous token of admiration for her talent…
Hereâs the funny thing: I dare not send the link with Drabbleâs praise of JosĂ© Francisco to our national AEDEAN email list for Iâm not sure whether Drabbleâs sweet comment will be welcomed by our academic peers. Will they sneer? Will JosĂ© Franciscoâs efforts be mocked by some envious academic, spurned by his or her idol? Ugly of me to suspect my own peers yes, I know, but Iâve seen worse… Still, I feel that he deserves much praise for what Drabble reads, correctly, as an act of âpure love.â So, hereâs my entry, to remind ourselves that what we do for academic reasons is often not so far from a fanâs passionate dedication. And it is often shared by other fans, as you can see from the rapturous reviews the volume has got from a handful of admiring readers at Amazon.com.
Of course, what Iâm itching to say is that, inevitably, as a woman, I notice the gender issues raised by Drabbleâs grateful praise of JosĂ© Franciscoâs homage. Fancy a male writer saying this of a female academic in our times… Yet, this is also the time when, finally, a male academic can kneel at the feet of a female writer and show truly felt admiration. This happens in the same week when, here in Spain, a fragile, 85-year-old Ana MarĂa Matute is finally awarded the third Cervantes prize received by a woman writer in 35 years. No wonder Nuria Amat complained that women writers working in Spanish are still ninguneadas (see https://www.uimp.es/blogs/prensa/2009/06/23/nuria-amat-critica-que-las-escritoras-hispanas-son-ocultadas-por-el-mercado-editor-la-academia-la-critica-y-los-lectores/ ).
So: handsome the man, yes, but even more handsome the gesture, the book. I just wish many other, male and female, academics would learn from the example and do more for the love of the women who write.
Monthly Archives: April 2011
A LINK TO AN INTERVIEW IN A GREAT BLOG!
I’ve been interviewed by RaĂșl Calvo for his blog, El cinĂ©fago de la Laguna Negra, and here’s the link:
https://elcinefagodelalagunanegra.blogspot.com/2011/04/sara-contra-los-monstruos.html
Enjoy!!
THE OTHER BOOKS: THE PROBLEM OF NON-FICTION
I seem to be developing an allergy to novels, for causes I find hard to diagnose. I have frequently heard that when compulsive readers reach a certain age (em, mid-forties) we get tired of novels and seek in other genres the literary and intellectual satisfaction we crave for. This may be happening to me, as for the first time in my reading life, Iâm avoiding novels (except the ones I teach, of course…). What am I reading instead? Drama, poetry and everything else, that is to say, non-fiction.
I find the label ânon-fictionâ lazy and silly; it sounds even worse in Spanish or Catalan, trust me. Yet, as often happens with lazy, silly labels (think: Romanticism) it has stuck and it is beginning to create a serious problem: how to define the genre (non-genre?) it names. Strictly speaking, the problem has been around for quite some time and what I really mean is that now that Iâm itching to teach a course (sooner or later) I find myself concerned with it. Thatâs egotism for you.
Surfing the net, Iâve come across two interesting lists of non-fiction, both American as, somehow, the label seems to be more popular across the Ocean (Amazon.com includes the category in its best-sellers lists, Amazon.co.uk doesnât). Check the list of 100 best non-fiction books at the Modern Library website (https://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction/) and the counter-list at CounterPunch (https://www.counterpunch.org/top100nf.html), which also includes a twin list of non-fiction in non-English… Ualah!!, as kiddies say today. The horizon expands and suddenly I have almost 300 more interesting books to read. A miracle!
During surfing I also come across Lee Gutkindâs label âcreative non-fictionâ (see the eponymous journal he founded at https://www.creativenonfiction.org/), which he uses to distinguish, with less than meridian clarity, non-fiction of a literary cast from the more utilitarian kind. âNon-fictionâ used to be called the âessayâ and even âbelles-lettresâ but Gutkind seems to be guilty of persuading the National Endowment for the Arts to embrace âcreative non-fictionâ as the comme-il-faut label in 1983. He mentions as examples of the best 20th century non-fiction classics like George Orwellâs Down and Out in Paris and London, James Baldwinâs Notes of a Native Son, Ernest Hemingwayâs Death in the Afternoon, and Tom Wolfeâs The Right Stuff, âbooks that communicate information (reportage) in a scenic, dramatic fashion.â Of course, the genre becomes fully established with Truman Capoteâs intense In Cold Blood. That might be it, for my own more recent favourites respond to that description: Susan Orleanâs The Orchid Thief, Deborah Cadburyâs The Dinosaur Hunters, Sebastian Jungerâs The Perfect Storm and even Mark Bowdenâs Black Hawk Down (in Spanish, Ignacio Elgueroâs Los niños de los ChiripitiflĂĄuticos).
However, this category of the âlively reportageâ is to narrow to encompass all of (creative) non-fiction. The lists Iâve mentioned include plenty of other kinds of valuable non-fiction: from The Education of Henry Adams to Aspects of the Novel, passing through James Watsonâs The Double Helix and even Elizabeth Davidâs French Provincial Cooking (in non-English, some highlights are: Thor Heyerdahlâs Kon-Tiki, Barthersâ Mythologies, Rigoberta Menchuâs Autobiography and Hassan Fathyâs Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt).
Iâm beginning to think that ânon-fictionâ simply means an interesting book in prose which is not a novel (and not poetry and not drama)… This would be the equivalent of calling men ânon-women,â which might have a point but is hardly a useful, self-defining label. I do know there are narrower categories (the Wikipedia entry for ânon-fictionâ gathers together 30 genres under this label!!), but I also know that when I visit the library I do not use them. I just want a non-novel, which, funnily enough includes drama (also fiction!!) and poetry (not quite, unless weâre talking Beowulf…).
More thinking to do… My, this never ends.
EUROPEAN DOCTORATE: SOME DOUBTS
This entry is prompted by a suggestion from one of my senior colleagues, recommending that we invite EU (= non-Spanish) researchers to the examining boards of our doctoral students. At UAB we do have something called âDoctorado con menciĂłn europeaâ (European Doctorate), which entails quite a complicated system of validation for dissertations: a three-month stay abroad for the candidate (self-financed!) tutored by a local researcher; two reports once the dissertation is completed by two other non-Spanish researchers and a fourth EU specialist, invited to the board. The four non-Spanish EU specialists get nothing for their pains (well, one gets invited to Barcelona…), which makes finding them a matter of appealing to friendship or flattery. Although the internet suggests this scheme is active all over Europe, still today, after asking repeatedly the corresponding administrators, I canât say whether this is a UAB, Spanish or European validation system. No one seems to know…
Hereâs a sample of my experience with European doctorates. I tried to set up an exchange with a British university I wonât name. I send one of my doctoral students to study with a specialist, who is, indeed, very willing to help (because she knows me, not because sheâd heard about the European Doctorate) and I get one of theirs to tutor. Sending my student is no problem at all, but the student I was supposed to tutor at UAB was told by this British university that a) theyâre not aware that the European Doctorate exists and b) the stay at UAB would not be considered part of the study time for his dissertation. When he asked whether I could be an external examiner on his board (with the full support of his supervisor), the answer was that foreign specialists are only invited for linguistic reasons (i.e. if the dissertation deals with a foreign language). So much for reciprocity.
This might be unusual, or pure bad luck, but I witnessed recently yet another example of European miscommunication that left me reeling. A colleague invited to the examining board of a doctoral student who had fulfilled the expensive, demanding requirements for a European Doctorate two non-Spanish EU specialists (French, I think). I have no idea why but one of them decided it was the right time and place to teach a lesson in European assessment strategies and, after quite an ugly debate, awarded the candidate a lower mark than she deserved. Why? Because, in her own words, this is what the dissertation really deserved using a European grading scale. This clearly hinted that we, Spaniards, overvalue our PhD dissertations -which might be the case?- but also that we are NOT European. By the way: thereâs no such thing as a European grading scale for PhD dissertations, although in view of this incident we might urgently need one, as national grading traditions clearly differ from each other.
My two examples might just be examples of very bad luck but I worry that by calling foreign specialists to our examining boards here in Spain weâre sending out the wrong message: that we need them to validate what we do, for we are not good enough. I have seen websites by other British universities with the same rules we use for European Doctorates but I wonder who is invited to their boards (German and French specialists?). Are we going to build yet another hierarchical system by which the aim of reciprocity results in having a jet set of top European specialists (German, British, French…) validating what their less efficient neighbours do? Am I simply too pessimistic, as usual?
PLATE-SPINNING (MY CIRCUS ACT, OR THE UNIVERSITY AS A CIRCUS)
I was head of department for a brief stint (2005-8), a hectic time that left me with the perfect metaphor for what we, academics, do: plate-spinning. Recall the stereotypical Chinese circus artist, keeping a dozen plates furiously spinning: thatâs us. Preparing and marking exercises, writing paperwork, preparing and teaching and classes, answering email (lots of…), seeing visitors at office hours, making appointments, organising and attending conferences, reading dissertations… and thatâs just a typical day. Today for instance has already had a little of all this, much of it through email â and itâs only 14:00. Writing this blog entry feels actually like a break.
I realise now that doctoral students writing their PhD dissertations are immensely privileged as they can claim priority for their research, which we, tenured teachers, cannot do. This week, for instance, I need to decide whether to spend Friday marking exams or working at the library on a conference paper. Whatever is not done on Friday will have to be done on Saturday, so my guess is that the exams will take part of my weekend (either that or work during my Easter… holidays?). Then, just yesterday, I got a 400 page dissertation by one of my doctoral students; I am already reading another one sitting on my table… The problem with the plates is not just that they must be kept spinning but that unexpected ones keep falling from the sky…
What about my writing, I wonder? I do write, of course, but almost always to a deadline (conference, collective volume…). What is fast disappearing from my life as a researcher is the free-choice article, the one you embark on just because you need to say something in particular that some journal might pick up. I donât know how I managed to write one last autumn… The one I want to write this semester is not even at the stage of basic bibliographical research. As for books, I have no idea how I have managed to publish a few, for the one Iâve been working on for the last three years has been actually on stand-by for one and a half. Maybe I need an academic wife, thatâs some thought for a feminist…
I blame Oxbridge novels and films, though I couldnât name one in particular, for the very wrong view of academic life as a peaceful, sedate oasis of intellectual cultivation. I donât seem to find the peace and as for the cultivation… Perhaps Iâm just getting old and losing the capacity to sacrifice more of my so-called free time to my job, or maybe I just canât cope with so many plates.
End of the break…
TESTING, TESTING, ONE, TWO, THREE: MAKING SURE LITERATURE STUDENTS READ LITERATURE
A student in our Department has bragged (in a classroom, before a teacher and classmates) that he has passed an English Literature subject (mine) with a high mark without having read any of the set texts. How? Quite possibly, he has attended classes regularly, seen film adaptations and downloaded guides to the set texts. Yes, it can be done. The result of his boast is that we, the English Literature teachers, have started a discussion about whether we should introduce compulsory, eliminatory reading tests: you donât pass them, youâre not awarded a mark for the corresponding exercise.
There was a hilarious moment in our last meeting when a colleague with a degree in English from Edinburgh University explained that as a student there he had to pass a pre-semester eliminatory reading test. Yes, he was expected to read ALL the set texts BEFORE the subject started; students who failed the reading test were, simply, not allowed to register for this subject. I assume not even Edinburgh can hold today these high expectations about studentsâ willingness to read. I explained to him, though he knows this perfectly well, that itâs even difficult to test students before teaching each text, as they donât buy the books with time enough to read them, if they buy them at all. We publish the complete syllabus for all subjects in July but not even second semester students buy all the texts in advance. I was told by one of them that they buy books about two weeks before we use them in class, as itâs too expensive to buy them all at once. Logically, they read the books, if weâre lucky, as we teach them. The only option is testing them after teaching is over, not quite a guarantee that classes will work better.
So: point one, students donât read â will the tests encourage them to read? Maybe. My own resistance to testing has also much to do with the fact that weâll have to use class time and mark even more exercises (not to mention preparing the tests themselves). I find it very depressing and disappointing that we need to check that university students do what theyâre supposed to do, but theyâre leaving us no other option. Now, again, how can a student pass an English Literature subject without reading the books? The answer is simple: what we test is their acquisition of the intellectual skills required to write literary criticism. In an exam, we donât ask what happens in chapter 18 of Wuthering Heights but how the structure chosen by Emily BrontĂ« conditions our understanding of the love story between Cathy and Heathcliff. We teach reading, but we test writing based on reading. A clever person can perfectly understand this and, well, cheat (see above).
What depresses me even more than having to introduce reading tests is that an intelligent student may boast about not having read a set of wonderful books: Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Heart of Darkness. It is sad to see how some people prefer flaunting their ignorance rather than learn. A sign of our times, no doubt. Some day, hopefully, the tide will turn and weâll get eager, self-motivated students asking for more (and if youâre already here, do ask us, please, we love to teach those willing to learn). Meanwhile, Iâll sharpen my red pencils and get ready to mark those irritating reading tests… another waste of time.
FOUR IS COMPANY (WHAT SHAW IMAGINED FOR ELIZA)
As everyone whoâs read or seen Pygmalion knows, Shaw failed to give his play a coherent ending, which is why audiences have always fantasised that, somehow, Eliza and Higgins find happiness together, in love. This is, of course, nonsense, as they make an impossible couple, something both realise but that Eliza, like the audience, resists. Our deep indoctrination in romantic fiction makes the happy ending inevitable, a point which Shaw stubbornly disputes in his absurd epilogue (absurd because it canât possibly convince either reader or spectator).
The romantic option triumphs because not even today have we managed to imagine an alternative. Reading the play with my first year students, we came to the passage towards the end of Act V when Higgins, after calling Eliza âdamned impudent slutâ (!), congratulates her for having finally understood that releasing her pent up anger is far better âthan snivelling; better than fetching slippersâ. Happy to see that, since the girl is no longer afraid of him, she can finally stand on her own two feet, Higgins imagines a life in which âYou and I and Pickering will be three old bachelors together instead of only two men and a silly girl.â Yes, a sexless threesome in which, besides, Eliza should be degendered âor, rather, treated as an honorary (celibate) man. Not quite what a woman would dream of, though I do see Higginsâ point. At least, he shows some imagination, we donât.
I take it that Shaw was joking, or maybe so out of touch with his own society that he truly imagined that his singular threesome âthe gentleman, the bully and the ladyâ could succeed. At any rate, Higginsâ proposal opens untold of possibilities beyond coupledom and the family. Itâs close to current flat sharing, only itâs not conditioned by money. Nor by age, and this is whatâs truly odd. Fancy a young woman living with two middle-aged men and enjoying it (or for that matter, a young man living with two middle-aged women). Couldnât they have fun and live in perfect companionship if they chose to? (of course, thereâs a Mrs. Pearce to pick up the dirty clothesâŠ)
Funnily enough, the playâs epilogue leads to this final solution, the threesome, complemented with the addition of a fourth member, who seems to be there just to satisfy Elizaâs sexual cravings: pretty Freddy. Shaw gave Higgins a classic Oedipal backstory. Mrs Higgins, that formidable mamma, would, ironically, make a great mother-in-law but Higgins simply wonât have it. He chooses celibacy over young women (or menâŠ), pretending he cannot understand either Pickeringâs admiration or Elizaâs feelings. Pickering, surely, must be happy in Higginsâ particular household, as heâs a pliable man who loves the company of those he loves. Eliza, lucky girl, gets a gentle âfatherâ, a gentle husband, and a most special friend. And Higgins gets to enjoy her company without the bother of being her husband.
Iâm sure poor Cathy Earnshaw would have killed to get her brother Hindley, her husband Edgar and her âspecial friendâ Heathcliff together under the roof of Wuthering Heights, living in perfect domestic bliss. Instead, you see?, she must let herself die.
Eliza, yes, you lucky girl…
THE DAY I THREW A PAIR OF SLIPPERS AT A STUDENT IN CLASS (AND HE SEEMED TO ENJOY IT!)
Three of my first year students were supposed to offer a dramatised reading of Pygmalionâs Act IV. In it, after her successful impersonation of a lady at a posh party, Eliza quarrels bitterly with her teacher Higgins because she thinks heâs not considered in depth whatâs to become of her once this odd experiment is over. I didnât want the students to simply read, I aimed this time at a more properly theatrical performance, and, so I was carrying simple props, like a couple of plastic envelopes shaped as the slippers she throws at him at the start of the quarrel.
Now, the girl supposed to play Eliza never turned up, aghhhh, and, whether dismayed or inspired, I’m not sure, I volunteered to play the role. My, that was fun!! I got to throw the âslippersâ at the student playing Higgins and he had the pleasure of calling me names. I recommend this to any teacher, really!!! What amazing therapy!
Also, I think the point of the exercise was accomplished, indeed for my own benefit: we learned to see in the text what is usually missed in our fast, silent, private reading. And it turns out I myself had missed a key passage with Pickeringâs comments on personal style, the very subject of my previous entry. This is what the student playing Pickering read, and I finally heard, when Higgins complains that the party was mortally boring and âThe whole thing has been simple purgatoryâ:
PICKERING. You’ve never been broken in properly to the social routine. I rather enjoy dipping into it occasionally myself: it makes me feel young again. Anyhow, it was a great success: an immense success. I was quite frightened once or twice because Eliza was doing it so well. You see, lots of the real people can’t do it at all: they’re such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position; and so they never learn. There’s always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well. (my emphasis).
There you are!! Pickering, the party animal thirsting for glamour. Heâs boasting that Eliza shone out almost professionally and I see here the pride of her other Pygmalion. Sorry, Shaw, Iâd missed this but Iâll still insist that Pickering should be allowed to leave the closet…