femminista: thoughts of a feminist rhetorician

Yesterday, I spoke with my students in English 420E: Business Writing for Entrepreneurs about ethics. Frequently, I have been told that undergrads don't get the nuances of ethical and moral situations. Yesterday ,I found evidence to both support and refute that hypothesis. Using Steven Katz's example of the Nazi memorandum, I discussed the ethical implications of using language that is too technical, that is dehumanizing. In the Nazi memo, which addresses the need for changes to the vehicles used to transport Jewish people to the death camps, people are referred to as "loads." Specifically, the memo uses such terminology thus: "it has been observed that when the doors are shut, the load always presses hard against them when darkness sets in.

1. The Yankee-Devil Rays debacle. Here's hoping the Devil Rays get hit by a train made out of fire and MLB stops handing out fines and suspensions like candy. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can read about the hooplah that has resulted in suspensions for Melky Cabrera and Shelley Duncan as well as a nice fine for Joe Girardi (great way to start his tenure as manager. Thanks a lot, MLB) here at Yankees.com. Train-made-out-of-fire. Seriously.
2. I got glutened on my trip to Indy
3. Of course, I get sick no matter what I eat anymore and I don't know why, which means lots of GI discomfort with no idea how to prevent it. This also means that I am probably allergic or intolerant to some other food group and will be starting and elimination diet soon. Or I need to have my gall bladder removed. Good times.

I just received my teaching assignment for next fall and I'm totally psyched about it.  I'll be teaching Multimedia Writing!  I'll also be teaching another section of English 420, but I'm way more excited about teaching in my primary area of interest.  One of the reasons that I enjoy teaching business writing is that it gives me the opportunity to incorporate multimedia writing into my curriculum.  Obviously, I'll still be doing that but it will be nice to teach a class where that's the primary focus.

In my Postmodern Rhetoric class, we had a fairly lengthy discussion of Marshall Alcorn's Changing the Subject in English Class: Discourse and the Construction of Desire. Unfortunately, the topic that I was most interested in discussing didn't emerge until the end of class (and I had a bit of difficulty being heard). My classmates were discussing the difficulties that arise when students make racist comments (or comments that you otherwise feel is inappropriate), either in class or within their writing. The question of assessment, as always, demanded much of our attention.

So, I've been absent from this blog for some time now. Or, at least, I've been absent from the public spaces of this blog because of all the freaking site maintenance I've had to do. I've upgraded to the latest version of Drupal and had all kinds of issues with updating modules, etc. Before upgrading, I decided to switch to WordPress and after learning the interface, relearning php (because WP doesn't have the slick GUI that Drupal does), editing themes, reviewing plugins, and basically spending way too much time reading about ways to use WordPress and not enough time actually blogging, I've decided to come back to Drupal, my first CMS love. Oh how I wish I'd never left.