Writing your journal article in 12 weeks

As some of you may know, I’ve been receiving a free monthly micro-newsletter on how to be a more productive scholarly writer from Wendy Belcher, now a professor at Princeton, and formerly editor of Aztlan published at UCLA. Her book on academic publishing, largely based on the class she taught on the same subject at UCLA, is finally coming out. I thought you might like to know. I took her class and thought it was very helpful. I can't imagine a better guide out there for scholarly writers in the humanities. She really demystifies what can be an obscure and frustrating process for many of us. You can look into it at www.sagepub.com Here's the full title:

Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success by Wendy Laura Belcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. January 2009. 376 pages. $29.95. ISBN: 9781412957014.

AP Reading

Anybody planning on going to Cincinnati in June?

Movies again

My colleague in English sets up her film class as a four hour course so the class watches the film together say on Monday for a couple of hours and then comes back on Wednesday for another two hours to discuss. The students must watch the film together. In a foreign language class I think you could justify taking class time to watch the film as if you were working through a difficult literary passage in class together. Watching, like reading, becomes the objective of the time spent in class with the film.

Rico's edition of _DQ_

FYI, Rico's edition of the Quixote (with copious prefatory essays, notes, and every other critical apparatus you can imagine) is now available gratis at CVC.

Favorite Student

If you recall, a student of mine submitted a paper that had been cribbed verbatim from an article by a well-known scholar in our field. I gave her a chance to submit an acceptable paper to me, but after several email exchanges it became apparent to me that she wasn't getting the message. I wrote a blunter message indicating why I couldn't accept what she had given me, and what I expected from a resubmitted paper, and she wrote back telling me that "su maldad de usted me hizo vomitar," that she is disgusted with me now that I have revealed my true face, that she never wants to see my face again. But it looks like she still might want to take me up on my offer to submit a new paper. Since I made the offer, I guess I still have to honor it, but I wonder how sympathetic a hearing she thinks she's going to get after this.

Movies in Class

I don't know if we've covered this yet, but I was wondering how you guys handle films in class. In the past, for the most part, I've avoided showing full-length films in class, because in general I see that as a waste of class time. I usually put movies on reserve in the library, and then just show clips in class.

For my culture class, I'm thinking of showing Alatriste, which I bought in Spain, and is unavailable here, because it does a nice job of recreating Golden Age Madrid, and Ay Carmela, which is set in the Civil War.

So, do you guys ever show films over several class periods? If so, do you provide a study guide, or some sort of pedagogical apparatus?

The Latest in Fecopoetics

Since Mike and I plan to present at Kalamazoo this year, I thought you might to check out this blog post on the cutting edge of Medieval Studies.