group project #2: annotated edition for Benito Cereno

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We voted today and decided to do an annotated version of Benito Cereno together on the theme of relevant intertexts, especially the narrative of the real Amasa Delano. Here are the ground rules:

  1. We will use hypothes.is to annotate our text.
  2. We will use the dead simple “edition” that I’ve posted on our site using the plain text version from Project Gutenberg.
  3. Each student is responsible for minimum three annotations taken from some text that’s relevant to Melville’s text. Easiest, of course, is comparing aspects of Delano’s text, which you can find in searchable form here or in your Norton, where it’s reprinted. You could also search for other relevant historical texts on (for example) slave revolts or the activities of sealers or ideas about Senegal and enslaved Africans returning there or whatever you can think of. I’ll post relevant intertexts as I think of them and locate them. Hathi Trust is an amazing trove of old texts that are searchable, so you might poke around there.
  4. Evaluation: I’m most concerned that each of you clear the bar of (only) three annotations, which will get you a good solid B. More notes will be rewarded, as will especially lucid notes, and notes from surprising sources. Evaluation will not be as stringent as with the first project, since this is a quicker/dirtier project by its nature.

Sound good? Have fun and see you Tuesday. The annotations are due a week from today, Friday March 18th.

Two pieces on the politics of BENITO CERENO

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You might be interested to read two recent reflections on the relevance of Benito Cereno to the present political moment. The author, Greg Grandlin, focuses on the the rise of extremist right-wing politics via the Tea Party (and now, of course, Trumpism) and the utter dehumanizing and delegitimizing of President Obama in one piece and, in the other, aligns the sunny liberalism of Amasa Delano with a strand of American imperialism no less troubling than that of the much better-known Ahab.

prizes (and cash money)

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The English department offers a wide range of prizes each year for the best work in X or Y categories. The list of prizes is here and the deadline is fast approaching: 2/29.

I can’t encourage you enough to submit work. Of course many of the prizes are competitive, but there are always categories that are undersubscribed, and you all have good or great work in your drawers that should get recognition. So do it!

I’ll also mention that ACERT is starting a new prize for the best example of student “digital writing.” All of our projects would qualify, so when the call for applications goes out next week, I fully expect you all to apply!! Stay tuned…

Final project ideas page/doc

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I’ve started to jot down some of the 4am ideas I’ve had about cool final projects for y’all (and some that you’ve spontaneously generated, whether you realized it or not, during class). I’m keeping them on a Google Doc that’s embedded on a page on the top menu of this blog.

So take a look and feel free to add to it as well. It’s very early still, but it never hurts to think about what you might do, especially while a given topic is fresh.

O Humanities!

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This opinion piece from the NY Times relates obliquely to our discussion of Benjamin’s “The Storyteller” this and last week. The author, an English professor from Brown, passionately defends the value of literature over and against the “STEM” fields (science, technology, engineering, and math), arguing that the latter are primarily “informational,” whereas the humanities concern themselves with questions of value.

Interestingly, Weinstein opposes novels to STEM modes of inquiry in ways that are closely analogous to the way Benjamin opposes traditional storytelling to the news. In that way, it’s the novel that’s the cultural form that’s under threat and, thus, reveals an unexpected beauty/value, just as oral storytelling did for Benjamin in 1936.

interactive, annotated Bartleby on Slate

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Pretty cool version of Bartleby edited by a Slate writer, Andrew Kahn, last year. It’s richly illustrated and contains a wide range of notes that provide historical context and a sense of some of the diversity of critical opinions on the text over the years since its publication. And there’s even an audiobook version on the site for good measure.

As such, it also points towards our second collaborative project together, in which we’ll be doing something similar (though with much lower production values!) with Benito Cereno, so as you check it out, think about what Kahn did to make this work. Or not.

quick follow-up on hypothes.is + evaluation

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I just wanted to sum up our quick discussion about using hypothes.is for annotating our readings in the course and to say a quick word about evaluation. First, nuts and bolts:

If you are using your own machine:

  • download the Chrome browser (if you don’t already have it) and the Chrome extension for hypothes.is
  • navigate to a text you want to annotate
  • click the hypothes.is icon in the extensions area of the browser window

Screenshot_2016-02-08_16_10_57

  • the tools will pop up on the right-hand side of the window and you’re up and going

If you are not using your machine or are a die-hard Firefox/etc. person:

  • first try dragging the hypothes.is bookmarklet to the bookmark bar
  • if the browser you’re using will permit you to do this, navigate to a page you want to annotate and then click the applet icon in the bookmark bar, and you’re good: if it worked, you’ll see the tools on the right-hand side

Screenshot_2016-02-08_16_16_25

  • if the browser won’t let you, navigate to hypothes.is and enter the URL of the page you want to annotate into the appropriate cell

Screenshot_2016-02-08_16_18_45

  • on some occasions (say, if you’re accessing something via the library proxy), this won’t work, and you’ll get stuck in a redirect loop and time out

Bottom line: if you save the annotating work for the course for times you’re with your own computer, you’ll never have problems. If you can’t, you still should be just fine most of the time.

In terms of evaluation, I view your annotating much the way I view your participation: I think it’s important and value it highly (15% of your grade in each case); I care about both quantity and quality of both; I don’t want to force you to do either according to a reductive template to earn a grade for both. So be active in annotating texts, just as you are in participating in class. At the end, you will have a substantial body of work for me to evaluate (and I can see your whole output very easily in hypothes.is, unlike your class participation!). I don’t expect you to be profound all the time; I just want to see your reading/thinking process spontaneously at work. Added bonus: those of you who are naturally shy or retiring in class can use the distinctive privacy of cyber-annotations to step out a bit more!