Here's Why You Hate the Word "Webinar"

Awful.

Awful, awful, awful.

But have you ever wondered why it's so awful? 

I think I've figured it out. Here's my pet theory as to why "webinar" sucks as a portmanteau: Because it's not a real portmanteau at all. The "web-" replaces "sem-", but "sem-" is not a prefix with a defined meaning that "web" is substituting for. The substitution is based on assonance. Which is fine if you are writing Old English epic poetry or a Tom Waits song, but not so much if you're trying to impart meaning.

Same goes for "webucator," which I have only seen one time, but which burned its way into my brain like sulphuric acid.

 
So: what other hideous edu-jargon do you hate and why?


(PS: my dad asked for more non-Middlemarch content. He made no specifications as to quality. Enjoy, Dad!)

In Lieu of Middlemarch, a Tale from My Brain

First of all, Middlemarch post is delayed a week for international travel. For those of you asking "Where should I be caught up to?", the post next Monday will cover the final chapters (28-33) of book three, "Waiting for Death."

But, since I don't have anything on that story today, I'll tell you another one, this one from my own brain. Which is a strange, strange place sometimes.

This week begins a crazy time of conferencing. This weekend, I have a weekend symposium in Frankfurt. Next weekend, it's the Medieval Academy in Atlanta. I, meanwhile, reside in a place in the Pacific time zone. So this week has required a lot of mental preparation. Over and over again, I've been repeating the litany: "Teach on Monday; Laundry/pack on Tuesday; Leave for Germany on Wednesday; Arrive on Thursday; Return home on Sunday; teach Monday-Weds; leave for Atlanta on Thursday; present on Friday; Return home on Sunday; teach on Monday..."

It's a long litany, and not an interesting one, but it's been helping me by cementing in my mind that there's a precise order to everything, and if I stick to it, I'll be more or less fine. Tired, but fine. The papers are done, anyway.

So, today (Tuesday) I had set aside as my calm-before-the-storm day off, a day to charge the batteries before two weeks of chaos. I was going to meet a friend for morning coffee, then go to yoga, do laundry, pack, etcetera. And this morning, I woke up at 4:30, because I was a little cold. As I found another blanket and resettled in, I reminded myself that I needed to remember to take my passport info to the coffee shop, because yesterday when I had tried to check in for my flight, I didn't have what I needed with me.

And then it occurred to me to wonder: Why would the airline send me a check-in notification two days before the flight, rather than the usual one day?

And then it hit me.

Oh, shit.

And at 4:30, I was suddenly wide awake, checking my e-mail. Yes indeed: I had miscalculated my departure. I'm not leaving tomorrow.

I'm leaving today.

Happy travels!

First Day Observations

1. I haven't been in the classroom since last May. More importantly, I haven't been in my classroom clothes since last May. Spain included a lot of delicious cheese. You do the math.
2. My classes are packed. Seriously: all of them are full to capacity. This is unusual for medievalists. But damn, it's not easy leading a discussion in these big classes.
3. I have almost all my classes prepped and ready through March. Because February is going to be a haze of travel and writing and course prep. 
4. This begins my fifteenth year on the tenure track. Why do I still feel like a rank beginner?
5. If there were any class in which to have an interrupting mansplainer, did it have to be my gender class?
6. This is not a Middlemarch post. In case you hadn't figured that out by now. But that will come tomorrow.

Medieval Mammal of the Week

Meet the "least weasel." This, apparently, is the little guy or gal you want to get if you have mice on board your medieval ship.

 
And trust me: you DO have mice on board your medieval ship. Be smart: get a least weasel now, before it's too late.

On the other hand, it's not NOT political history.

The history social webs are all abuzz today about the recent op-ed in the New York Times, asking the question "Why did we stop teaching political history?" And while I'm sure others will write about this (Tenured Radical is already on it, for example), I'm going to focus on how this op-ed helps to illustrate one of my pet peeves (and they are legion) in the field of English usage: this is the correct example of what's meant by "begging the question."

The phrase "begging the question" is most commonly used incorrectly: "Candidate X's sudden shift in position on a key issue begs the question of whether s/he ever actually intended to follow through with the original position." Here, it means "raises the question." In fact, it's used so much more often this way than the correct way (see below), that descriptivists/living language proponents might be justified in saying that this is now a fully correct use of the phrase.

But the phrase, in its original sense, is an a priori assumption, a trick to claim as a fundamental proposition the thing that is to be proven. And in that sense, the op-ed in question is a beautiful demonstration of this fallacy: "Why did X happen," when he has not proven that X did happen.

To put it more simply: the answer is that we haven't stopped teaching political history.

What have we stopped (or at least radically pulled back on) teaching and researching? Political history divorced from social, cultural, religious, economic, environmental, global, gender histories. Currently practicing historians realize that our fields were illusions that the boundaries were fuzzy, and that that was, actually, a good thing. Our courses (and research) may not be labeled "political history" because we are looking at the productive spaces where politics collides with race, or environment, or gender, or globalism, or, or, or.

illustrative anecdote: I am a medievalist who teaches a course on the crusades. I introduce the big outline of events in the first couple weeks, and then we move into theme weeks: gender and crusading, theologies of Just War; images of the Other; crusade and colonization. I explain to them on the first day that "this is not a military history course." And every time, a few pair of shoulders sag. But then I explain to them that it's not not military history. It's just that we're not doing 15 weeks of battles and generals and comparative trebuchets. The military dimension is present, but it doesn't operate in isolation.

And I guess that's what I'd tell the authors of this piece: that a job ad or research trajectory or course description might not be "political history"... but it's not not political history. And if the political is now infused with everything, then the flip side of that coin is that most other topics can no longer pretend to exist in isolation from the political.

All better now?

Research Notes from the Voices in My Head

You know those little notes we write to ourselves as we frantically scribble the drafts? Those little square-bracketed comments and reminders? Usually, they are something along the lines of:

• "Didn't I read something about this a couple months ago? Check notes."
• "Learn more about banking system to write 1 para."

Just things that you need to remind yourself of. Well lately, one of the voices in my head -- the one that is dubious every time my reach starts exceeding my scholarly grasp -- has been taking over and writing notes. It's sort of like Stephen Colbert's old "The Word" segment, where the talking points on the screen lobbed sarcastic commentary at him.  Here is yesterday's, as I typed it:

• “Neither revolt’s perpetrator was  kind enough to leave behind a manifesto telling later historians what their riot was all about. [Inconsiderate bastards].” 

This was today's:

• "A great deal has been written about riots without realizing that not all riots are the same, nor even remembered the same: the meaning of a riot changes. [Yeah, go ahead: pretend you’re a cultural historian. That’ll be fun.]"

Maybe I should just let that voice write my whole book. [You should: People might actually buy a copy if you did.]

That Fourth Horseman

Quick quiz! Name the four horsemen of the apocalypse! No googling!

...


...


...


Got it?

Okay, so it turns out that it's surprisingly contested, especially the identity of horseman #1. The original source (the Book of Revelation) has been interpreted a number of ways. But in the popular tradition, there's Pestilence (or Plague), War, Famine, and... Death.

I got to thinking about this because I'm researching one of the other horsemen. And I have to admit I've always wondered about Death-as-Horseman. Death is the only one that the original source material actually names by name. And yet it's the one that makes the least sense. I mean, isn't death implied in the other three? Is this just a case of gilding (or wilting) the lily?

Because, if not, then it sort of implies that War, Famine, and Pestilence maybe are serious, but not, you know, deadly-serious. Like maybe Famine is really more along the lines of "that feeling you get when you forgot to pack a lunch and have convinced yourself that you can make it until dinner time but now it’s 4 p.m. and you’re wondering if anyone will notice if you take something out of the employee fridge." Maybe Pestilence just turns out to be a bad rash, and you realize that you probably only need a little hydrocortisone ointment.

And then Death arrives late at the party, and is all like NO WE ARE NOT SCREWING AROUND PEOPLE.

____________________________

These are the things I think about.

Sister Notorious's Home for Wayward Medievalists

Children.

Does your end-of-semester grading have you in Babylonian captivity? Are you suffering a black plague of "medieval pheasants" in your essays? A great schism between the fun person you used to be and the jaded academic you've become? What seems like a hundred years of war between you and That One Colleague (let's call him "The Black Prince")?

Sister Notorious knows your pain. And she has a solution. A retreat center. Where we can all speak in Latin and drink unaged wine and let the serfs take care of all that pesky day-to-day living stuff.  Presenting the new site of our Home for Wayward Medievalists:

Friends don't let friends drink and decorate.

This is, I swear to you, is an actual property you can buy. And it's actually a bit of a steal. And located near a stretch of the Oregon coast, which is just the thing to recall the damp of England or Brittany.  On the down side, there is everything else.¹ It's like a Renaissance Faire got drunk and took up interior decorating and forgot that there were such things as different historical eras between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. This particular decorative mode might be described as "back in the day."

Which, I think, makes it just the place for medievalists suffering from end-of-semester loopiness to retreat to. Perhaps with a cask of artisanal hypocras.²

Scroll through the photos and see for yourself. But be warned: you can't un-see it.


Happy Holidays!



¹ I will confess to loving the kitchen. Though I'm not sure that a faux-tapestry runner is the best food prep surface.

² It's only an hour or two from Portland, and even closer to Eugene, and if there aren't hipsters there brewing up mead at the very least, I'll eat my fancy medieval headdress.

The Soundtrack of Scholarship

I like a little music while I scholar.

I know from experience that earplugs actually serve me better in terms of directing my focus inward. But sometimes work is better with music.

When I'm reading or writing, I like things with no words, or in words in a language I don't understand. NO CRESCENDOS. So something like piano sonatas, or even modern composers, or baroque choral music in Latin? We're good. Hell, even tibetan chimes/singing bowls, if it's early and still dark. Chopin nocturnes for when it's actually nox.

But occasionally, scholar-ing is a bit more active. Physically active. Like today, when the Hogwarts butler commandeered a giant chalkboard for me and I spent two hours making this:[1]

 

I puttered at it for a while, unsatisfied, but really picked up the pace and started enjoying myself when I found the right music. If you're familiar with either of Bob Mould's projects (Hüsker Dü or Sugar) that bracket his two solo albums (Workbook being a lot mellower than BSoR), you'll understand the sort of "I am not leaving the room until I kick this project's ass" mood that I was in. It was also a great relief to be physically moving, stalking from side to side of this board, standing back to see the whole thing, and occasionally getting into the music a bit -- not quite a dance break, but about as close as one gets with a bit of hard-rocking post-punk. So, on the off-chance that you have some more kinetic scholar-ing to do this weekend, enjoy:

[1] "This"  being a version of the genealogy of the medieval family that I was complaining about in this post. Believe it or not, this is far from complete: I had to leave out about half a dozen maternal lines because they added lines and messes on the board making the whole thing even less legible than previously. I settled for appending the brides' natal surnames -- something that medieval documents never do,[2] but that at least let me see what lineages were being brought together.

As far as all this mess goes, I'm really interested in the middle lineage, and in particular in a guy in the middle of the middle. But I was somehow driven by an urge to understand how it all fit together. So I made a Thing.

[2] ...except in a one very nifty case here in which the maternal surname becomes the surname for an entire branch of the lineage, for reasons that would make a very interesting research paper, I think.

It's like the last post was a jinx...

After oh-so-cleverly titling the previous post "Dancing with Ourselves"... I actually injured my lower back dancing.

By myself.

In my living room.

I have apparently reached the age where I need to stretch and warm up before any booty-shaking. This is intolerable.

Dancing With Ourselves

We've all been there: It's mid-afternoon at the office. You have grading to get through. Or maybe just the last ten minutes of your office hours to kill before you can go home. So you plug in the headphones and listen to a little of your favorite music to pass the time.

Or maybe, just maybe, you've finished a night class, and you're the only one in the building, and you don't bother with the headphones. Maybe you even sing a little tune under your breath while walking in the hall. Because you're happy.

Or maybe, just maybe, like the guy in the office next to mine, you habitually play music through the speakers of your computer in the middle of the day. Maybe you sing along. Maybe the music is Phil Collins. Or Bon Jovi. Or Night Ranger.

And maybe, when your next-door neighbor comes over and asks you to turn it down, you do. But maybe that request is forgotten the very next time you are in your office.

Or maybe none of this applies to any of us. But for some reason, I seem to have had the lyrics to "Sister Christian" stuck in my head for the past week. And it's not making me happy.

The Interview

No, not that kind of interview.  Yesterday, I was interviewed by a sixth-grader about what professional historians do.

It was one of those things that kind of gets dumped in your lap. In my case, it fell to me because I was the only one in the office when the call came into my chair. Sure, I thought: why not?

It turns out that the young woman in question was delightful. She had fallen in love with ancient history, and when she was given the opportunity to do a report on a profession for extra credit, she thought of finding a historian. Her mother helped her by making the initial call, but after that, the young woman took charge.

So, what did I tell her? Well, I told her that my job mainly had three parts: teaching, reading, and writing. I told her that you needed to learn lots of languages to work in ancient or medieval history. That most of my research was done in archives, which are like libraries with lots of old, scribbly documents. That my favorite part of the job was that I got to learn new stuff all the time, and that my least favorite part was grading papers. She told me she liked history, but some teachers "only want to study boring stuff like names and dates." I told her that I felt exactly the same way.

When she asked me what my advice was for someone who might want to be a writer (she had written 42 pages of a story about a girl who turns into a wolf and protects other wolves), I told her "write every day" and "read a lot of what other people write." When she asked me if her mom was right that she should learn to type, I told her that my mom had made me do the same thing, and that it was a skill I used in my job every day. And I told her not to be afraid of coming out with the wrong answer, because if you're right all the time, then you're probably not learning anything.

And then today, she sent me a very nice thank-you note.

Who knows? There might be hope for humanity after all.

The Grand Experiment

I'm unplugging.

No, not from the blog (though it might seem that way most of the time lately). What I'm doing -- brace yourself -- is disconnecting my home internet.

The spur for this decision was financial, as my home internet bill recently rocketed up to sixty-three dollars a month. That's just the internet. I knew that if I called the local monopoly and tried to cancel, they'd lower my rates. But then the more I started thinking about it, the more I wondered what my life would be like without internet at home.

Here's the thing: Having home internet allows me to do things like look up stuff immediately, download and upload student papers, order library books, maintain my course website, answer e-mails from my students and other assorted university folk -- all without having to go into the office. I can do it any day of the week, any time, day or night. That's a good thing.

Except when it's not, right? Being available 24/7 is a decidedly mixed blessing.

And then there's all the stuff that's just a drain: too much time on the web, watching TV shows I don't care about, watching videos of nothing important, checking Facebook gods only know how many times a day. Yes, I tried the thing where you install limits on the biggest time-suck sites. Except that I now just go in and dismantle these things. I have no self-control. And I figure I spent 15 hours a week, at least, doing things that don't matter, and that I can't remember 15 minutes later.

In short, for me, home internet provides marginal convenience at considerable expense, in many senses of the word. Hence, the grand experiment in unplugging. Yes, I'll still have internet at the office (I'm there four days a week), not to mention at various coffee shops that I frequent a couple times a week, as well as via my phone. It's not like I'll be out of touch. But what I won't be able to do is come home from work, turn on the computer, and piss away hours every evening. I'm interested to see what happens. What will my brain do without the constant distraction? What could I do with 15 more hours a week?

I'll be sure to use some of that extra time to keep you updated. From a coffee shop, that is.

44, or, La plus ça change...

...is how old I am today. Some facts about my life at this, the halfway point (if I'm very lucky and the damage hasn't already been done):

• Education/Employment: Gainfully employed in my field, tenured, and about to go up for promotion to full professor
• Housing: a very nice (albeit small) one-bedroom cottage apartment in a good neighborhood within walking distance of half a dozen coffee shops
• Transportation: Trek Lexa entry-level road bike
• Relationship status: happily unattached
• Most recent international trip: Last summer, to Italy, for a yoga retreat and intensive language courses
• Best recent accomplishment: Book award
• Thing that needs to go away: I can't believe I started smoking again. Crap.
• Overall state of mind: utterly content

At 33:

• Education/Employment: Just got a job offer and will be headed out to Grit City next week to look for an apartment
• Housing: Tiny attic studio in the student ghetto that I actually fixed up to be pretty nice... but damn it's hot. And I can be counted on to bash my head against the slanted ceilings at least once every six weeks. And I caught a mouse under the sink -- which is an improvement over the poisonous spiders in the previous place I lived, but still. A mouse.
• Transportation: Trek 530 hybrid bike, about 10 years old
• Relationship status: complicated
• Most recent international trip: Mop-up research trip to Blargistan, during the winter 18 months ago
• Best recent accomplishment: Defended my dissertation!
• Thing that needs to go away: See above, re: "relationship status"
• Overall state: relieved and a bit at sea

At 22:

• Education/Employment: Just completed first year at a fancy four-year college after two years at community college; working two food service jobs (a fancy restaurant and a coffee shop near school) at about 20 hours a week apiece.
• Housing: Downtown puddletown apartment in a great 1930s building, shared with a roommate. In this arrangement, I am in the role of obnoxious slob.
• Transportation: incredibly heavy 5-speed bike (circa 1978) + city bus.
• Relationship status: [redacted]
• Most recent international trip: 7-week solo trip to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland two years ago
• Best recent accomplishment: Accepted to junior year abroad trip to Munich
• Thing that needs to go away: As with most college students recently turned 21, I am drinking far too much alcohol (spoiler alert: A year in Munich is not going to help in this regard...)
• Overall state: Pretty screwed up, though blissfully unaware of how much so.

Looked at that way, it looks like I've done better for myself than I've any right to. Happy Birthday to me.

NOT from Student Papers: The Top Three Weirdest Things I've Heard About the Middle Ages

I'm in grading jail for the next 48 hours, though close enough that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and even justify a yoga class or two. But I've been trying to remind myself that a blog, like a garden, needs regular tending, and not just "too busy to post!" posts -- there needs to be some content.

So, for today's pathetic gesture towards content (and perhaps even some much-needed entertainment during grading season), here is my post on The Top Three Weirdest Things I've Heard About the Middle Ages.

And here's a switch-up: none of these come from student papers. Not a one.

Number Three: I posted about this one recently: the member of our campus' media relations office who wanted to interview me, but specifically wanted to talk about (a) What caused the fall of Rome and the beginning of the Dark Ages, and (b) whether there was any connection with the Third Reich.

Number Two: The student who very enthusiastically brought up on the first day of class the idea ("I read somewhere...") that the stories about dragons came from the fact that there were places in the remotest regions of medieval Europe where pterodactyls had survived.

And the number-one weird thing: The ladies overheard in the coffee shop:

"Why did they call it the Dark Ages?"
"Oh, well it was because there was so much death and disease and warfare and violence."
"Really? I heard it was because there was this big comet that hit the earth. And the comet threw up a lot of dust and so the sun couldn't shine for a few hundred years. And so that's why it's the Dark Ages."

There. Those student papers don't seem quite so bad now, do they? Happy grading season, everyone!

Procrastivity

Sometimes you just can't face the Thing that Must Get Finished. Usually, that Thing is grading. Today, some unseasonably hot and windy weather has sapped my will to do... well, anything. But certainly not grading.

This is the time for "procrastivity." I figure it's okay if I procrastinate, as long as I'm doing something, even if it's not the thing I'm supposed to be doing. So for the next 45 minutes, I will work on making a dent on the mess on my desk.  I think that will be sufficient.

Another Surreal Moment

UPDATE to the folks using this post to "advertise" their HVAC services: I am categorizing all such posts as spam and deleting them on sight. Stop wasting your time and mine.


My conversation with the facilities guy today, regarding a problem with the aged heating/cooling unit in my office:

FG: Someone called in a problem with the wall unit?

ME: Yeah. The cooling isn't working. It was working yesterday, but today it's only blowing hot air, even when it's supposed to be cool.

FG: That's what I thought the call down to us said. But I checked with my boss, and he tells me that there isn't actually air conditioning in this building.

ME: Yes, there is. I mean, there isn't any right now. But it was working yesterday.

FG: No -- this building only has pipes for heating, and a fan that circulates the regular air. You just thought it was air conditioning.

ME: I've been in this office 10 years. There's always been cooling. Including yesterday.

FG: My boss and four other guys told me there wasn't.

ME: But look: there's this dial right here that has two settings: one for heating and one for cooling. There are occasional problems with either one, but generally, they both do what they say they do.

FG: Let me get on the phone to my boss. [calls, confirms, puts boss and other Guys In Room on speaker phone, who also insist that there is not now, nor has there ever been, air conditioning of any kind in FO-2]

ME: Hang on here a minute. [walking next door to office] Coleague, is your AC working?

Martha: It was yesterday. Let me check. [turns on AC] Yep.

FG: [sets thermometer to measure temperature from wall unit next door]. Huh. 70 degrees. So there is air conditioning in this building. Let me see if I can fix yours.

finis.


To be fair, the guy in my office was very nice and apologetic about it once he realized his error. And I was equally gracious, assuring him that I understood he was only working with the information he had. And my cooling now works. But still.

You'll be stone dead in a moment!

From an e-mail from the leader of the History Students' Association, regarding an upcoming event that I agreed to give a quick 5-minute talk (on medieval food) for:

Dear Dr. Notorious,
 
Thank you for presenting tomorrow for the HSA event. Just as a reminder the event is from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm in the conference room.  The first 30 minutes will be presentations by the students or HSA members, followed by presentations by our extinguished faculty, such as yourself.

There are so many jokes here that I don't know where to start, so I'll just let my witty commentariat supply the punchlines. But first and foremost, there's this:

Here's the post I decided to break my three-months' silence with:

Oh, Right. I have a blog.

So here's the e-mail I got from my chair this morning:

"I write to inquire if any of you have a need for a small grant (~ less than $400 or so) for either travel (must be complete by 5/15), equipment, or research requirements (ie, indexing, translation, student assistance)?"

I asked for an exorcist for my printer, which eats paper, but only when I'm rushing to print something out in the five minutes before class.

Two hours later, I receive the following e-mail from the College of Liberal Arts' research liason:

"The Chancellor’s Office has asked our University to complete a survey regarding the use of aircraft or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) by any of our research programs.  If you are using any type of aircraft or UAV in your research, please e-mail  B-- N--."

I'm pretty sure I need to put in another funding request with my chair. There has got to be a way I can incorporate an unmanned drone into my research, right?

Student paper mad libs!

Okay, well, not really.

Hi!

I'm not dead, but I've just not been inspired to write much lately. Which, you know, happens.

But here I am, proctoring the last exam of the semester. And while I do so, I'm grading the very last undergraduate paper of the semester.  And right there, at the top, are these immortal and undying words:

"Since the beginning of time..."

It's nice to see someone go for the classics, yes?  This one happens to be about religion and science, so it's medium-silly. But since we're all in silly season, I invite those six of you who haven't given up on my blog entirely to complete the sentence above, using something that might be appropriate to your field.  Extra points for scientists!