Community College Essays on Job Apps

So, this job market season, I encountered something I never have before, and I love it.
Community colleges are asking you to answer detailed questions, like what is the first assignment you'd give and why? How do you deal with students who are struggling? What, other than your departmental responsibilities, would you like to be involved with on campus and in our community?

The other day I posted about how teaching statements don't do what they should-- they act like a list of cool things your students did rather than identifying what the teacher values, so people could more completely answer if the teacher is a good fit.
These questions, which frankly, everyone should be asking, are a much better way to get to know the kind of teacher you're hiring than anything else. And I LOVE them.

The application I'm working on today had this prompt:

It is the third week of school in your English 1A class, College Composition. The first paper has been submitted. After grading the papers, you realize that one-third of the class is below college level in their reading and writing. Write a three-page, double-spaced, essay explaining what steps you would take to help all of the students meet the course objectives and succeed.

This prompt starts at the end, so I want to explain all the steps I take in my classroom before this ending, that are designed to ensure that if students are struggling, I know well before they turn in anything, and have tailored class to support them. I don’t deviate here to be cheeky, but to make it clear that it would never be the first assignment before I realized the level of my students. The very first day I ask them to write for me, about their previous experiences in English, what they want, what they feel they need help with. I then tailor our lessons, our readings, our classes, around these answers. I believe that these steps are just as important, if not more important, than how I respond to the final product.

In my classes, whether they are developmental, composition, or literature, a key objective is to give the students the skills they need to be successful. This means that the lessons and activities I design in class teach and model the skills they need to produce their assignments. This includes but is not limited to examining model papers, creating organizers, working in class with dialectical journals to learn how to respond to textual evidence, crafting a thesis, and using introductions to outline essays. In addition to this approach, I also rely on writing workshops in my class. In my composition classes there are three major writing assignments, and each major writing assignment has two low stakes assignments that are the parts of the major writing assignment. So for example, if the major writing assignment is a position paper, the first low stakes assignment might be an “I believe” piece where students identify their stance on the topic, while the second low stakes assignment might be responding to the counter argument. This approach means students receive feedback on the smaller pieces of the major assignment, and have time to improve and revise it, before writing the larger assignment. This results in students doing better on the major writing assignments, but it also breaks down the skills students need into smaller, more manageable parts.  On these smaller assignments I make marginal comments, holistic comments, as well as use color coding-- what they did right is green, some things to reconsider or look at again is yellow, and things to focus on is red. This targeted response narrows what they need to focus on so they don’t get overwhelmed, and is easy to “read” for students who may struggle with English conventions because they are ELL learners, or who entered college with some skill deficiencies.

The week before any writing assignment is due, large or small, the students come to class with drafts of their work and peer edit. They learn to see writing as a continually evolving process, not a one and done item. Also, students can often see issues in other people’s work that they can’t see in their own. The students peer edit, and I answer questions during the workshop, as well as responding to all drafts. The students also learn how to use Google Docs, and collaborate in real time. In addition to this, if, after the writing workshop and feedback from me and their peers they want to send me another draft, even if it’s just a redone intro or body paragraph, I tell them I’ll look at any of this, in addition to answering questions, up to 24 hours before the final draft is due.

This system means that I know from the beginning where my students are, and how best to serve them. No student wanders through a third of class and then is surprised by a bad grade. The same holds true for the reading in class. I choose a variety of readings, based on student interests, as much as possible. I also teach them a variety of methods for responding to texts, and model them in class. I offer the students options, so they can try out different things, and find out what works best for them. The students learn to annotate, use online resources, take notes, identify important facts and details, as well as respond using things like dialectical journals. As with the writing, we do this work in class so I can see how the students do with the reading, and can intervene right then.

In my classses I always have two different approaches for feedback on writing that work together, interventions that will help individual students and interventions for the class as a whole, for improving papers. As I grade papers, I always keep a running list of errors, misunderstandings, or skills that are lacking, so that I can address them in class. If there are areas that a majority of the class needs help with, I use this list to create mini-lessons for the entire class. Ideas and concepts that might be covered are writing a good thesis, organization, using support, etc.  In addition to integrating these mini-lessons into whole group class writing workshops, I also add materials to my One Note writing notebook of resources that the class has access to, so they have it for reference. I also make all my lessons, resources, and models available through a hyperlinked Google Doc syllabus so students can always look back and find the things they need.

For the individual students, I use copious margin feedback on their papers that focuses on asking them questions, designed to guide their thinking, rather than a list of complaints, or comments that could be read as harsh. I also provide holistic feedback at the end of papers about my overall impression of the paper, and I try to focus on what was done right, as well as what are areas to improve. I next ask students to meet with me to discuss the notes, so I can make sure they understood the notes but most importantly that they know how to proceed. Students in my classes can always choose to rewrite their assignments for a higher grade, so understanding and internalizing the notes are important. In all my classes I think it is important to know who your students are, teach them where they are, intervene early and often, listen to them when they say they need help and what they need help with, and create an environment where they feel comfortable using me as a resource.

Thinking About Violence and Affect in Television and Films: Warning- gory images

The past few weeks I have gotten sucked into bingeing Vikings.
I remember trying to watch it a year or so ago and I just couldn't get into it.

But maybe it's because a friend is working on a chapter about the tattoos in Vikings, or maybe it's because I know actual medievalists work on the Old English and Old Norse, but I started the first episode on Amazon, and have raced my way through to season 4, DVRing season 5 as it's premiered.

I have not always been super attentive when watching. I found myself spacing out in some of the battle scenes. In part, because this type of uber-violence is not something that appeals to me. But I kept noticing that I could not ignore the violence in the show. I could not space out during the fights, the battles.

THE BATTLES ARE THE POINT.

This is not mindless violence. This is not the violence of Watchmen, or Sin City, or Kill Bill, or so many others, where it rarely is part of the narrative and too often seems like just violence for violence's sake. As though all these directors are trying to one up each other to see HOW gory, HOW violent, HOW far they can push it all.

That is what a lighting designer I used to work for calls "artistic masturbation" and it does not appeal to me.
But that is not how the violence in Vikings functions. It is not devoid and separate from the context and the narrative, IT IS the context for the narrative.
Much like the tattoos on the characters show growth and change, advancement, so too do their scars. The violence they live through, or not, defines them, marks their journey. These are not violent events just to showcase special effects, these are glorified versions of their lives.

At the same time that I have been watching Vikings, I had a chapter for an edited collection to write. The chapter analyzes the folkloric devil in The Last Temptation of the Christ and The Passion of the Christ as representative of who was demonized in the culture wars that each represents. My analysis required me to sit down and watch both films, taking detailed notes. Because I started work on this before finishing and submitting the dissertation, then set it aside, I found it a bit hard to come back to this, figure out how to write, how to THINK again.
I think one of the issues I had was that I knew I was going to have to sit down and watch The Passion of the Christ again. And I find it hard.

I love horror films. LOVE them. The gore does not bother me, never has, not even films that fall into the "torture porn" genre.
But I have a really hard time watching Passion. Like want to watch some parts through my fingers, flinch, hard.
It got me thinking about affect theory, and how the film sets up the violence as an experience, that the audience is called to witness the violence.

In the film, it is not the violence that is the point, but the effect it has on the audience as witness

Along with all of these thoughts, about violence as affect, audience as witness, and context, enters my watching Punisher. 

I used to love the character of Frank Castle. The righteous vigilante who sought justice for his family.
I disliked his appearance in Daredevil because that was not Frank Castle. Frank Castle was shown indiscriminately killing and injuring people in the hospital, and that was not the character I knew and loved.
The stand alone series has mostly ignored that, and has stepped away from that, showing more of the Punisher I know.

But as with many things, it's hard to like the Punisher these days.
The comic character is problematic for the way that an ultra-militant, not-legal, segment of the population has embraced him. The character's arc throughout the comic has become more and more problematic, but the fans who have embraced him are downright terrifying.

More and more, we can't separate symbols from the reception, their affect.
We can't claim ignorance of the impact characters, storylines, have on the culture at large.

So I want to like Frank Castle. I want to empathize with his hurt, his loss.
But the show doesn't let you. He is, by his own confession, complicit in the system, even if he didn't want to be.
He is a creation of the military industrial complex, but he doesn't stop, or get out, and he is given numerous chances to do so.

He does at least seem to recognize that the world does not have a place for him, backing off from those identified as "innocents" in the show.

The violence in the show is presented both as inevitable and avoidable. It is over the top, unnecessary, and symbolic of Castle.

It's easy to look away from the violence in Punisher, to look away, to space out. And I would argue that this is the danger of it. It is totally normalizes. We ACCEPT this level of violence from a white, militant man who sees himself as judge, jury, and executioner. 

I have no big insights into any of these.
Rather, these three things, experienced altogether as they were, seemed worth framing together.

The Hindsight of Research and Teaching Statements

It's 27 December, and just as I took down the tree, put away the ornaments and all the decorations, and took down the lights, it occurs to me that it's time to put away the job market materials as well.

But here's the thing...
I am a teacher. I've been a teacher since I first stepped into my Brooklyn classroom in 2001, I was a teacher before that as I taught and ran light crews as a master electrician in theatre, and I was a teacher when I was a wee one and forced my little sister to be my class as I taught her out of the McGuffey readers we had.
I am a teacher now, of high school students.
There is not a single thing that can make me NOT a teacher.

In a similar manner, I was a scholar before I ever started my PhD program. And I have met some excellent role models in the last few years about the scholarly contributions people outside of the academy make.
In fact, it might be a better fit. If I'm not beholden to a tenure committee, I have ultimate freedom to do MY brand of scholarship- to smash periodization. To explore folklore across genres and disciplines. To talk about the fun stuff.

I did have a thought yesterday though that I wanted to share.

Yesterday, as I was walking Nehi, I thought about teaching. Specifically, I thought about what teaching statements do, and what they don't do. They don't tell the truth. All the advice I see about teaching statements is to be specific about what you do in your classroom, to not speak in generalities To describe specific assignments, why you assign them, what they accomplish, etc. Invariably this looks like a list of cool assignments I've gotten, which is fine, but I think misses the heart of what people should look for in teachers.

But here's the truth:

Too often people with little to no pedagogical experience or training design their classes around their wants and needs, what is easiest for them. Scroll academic Twitter at the end of the semester and you'll see the end result of this. It doesn't appear to work very well, for the professors or the students, but it is a pattern that repeats again and again.
In my first year of teaching I was told to always do what was best for my students, not what was easiest for me. This has remained a guiding principle for how I design classes and interact with my students.
This means that I can't tell you exactly what my classes will be like from semester to semester. My students will be different, their needs and interests will be different. Where they're coming from will be different, so my class will be different.
I will not know when my office hours will be until I poll my students about what hours work best for the majority of them.
I won't know how to tweak the assignments until I see what they get and what they don't YET get.
I won't know what mini-lessons class needs to cover until I see what they need.

I can tell you what I value in a classroom. I can tell you what these values look like in my classroom.

• I believe in equity in my classroom, so I will always work to establish a culture in my classroom where everyone feels that their voices are valued, where they feel comfortable engaging with the text, me, and classmates, and where they can share their interests and insights.
• I believe there is a lot that students need to know to be successful in a classroom, and they're not always taught these things because people assume they already have these skills. So I will always be transparent about what I expect, why I expect it, and offer to model and teach students the hidden skills (professional email, how to use the library, how to evaluate sources, how to paraphrase, what to look for in a reading, how to participate in a class discussion, etc.) they need to be successful.
• I believe in representation, not diversity. So I will always revise and reflect on what I teach to make sure that my students see as much of a whole picture in context as I can. It also means that I will always empower my students to find themselves represented in my class, and empower them to share their research, enriching me and the course. 
• I believe that everyone's interests are valid. So I will always design fairly generic assignments that ask the students to pick their own research interests, to decide what the form should be, and to think about what the assignment should look like based on these things. Students will often struggle with this lack of structure. They are used to having everything laid out, a checklist of requirement. And I get that. But I want them to understand the importance of language, how it shifts and changes for audience and purpose, and I want them to understand how to adapt and change for different purposes.
• I believe in learning, not grades. So I will always encourage students to send me drafts, talk through ideas, and think through the process. It means that I will always leave a ton of comments on a students work, in a way they can read, that asks questions to help them revise, in addition to holistic comments about my overall feelings about the piece. It also means that students will always be allowed to revise their work for a higher grade.
• I believe in helping students will the gaps. So I will always offer help about time management, organization, resources on campus, and issues that women, POC, and first generation students face.
• I believe that my teaching style may not best serve all my students. So I will always check in with my students, informally in class, and more formally through surveys throughout the semester, in order to see how the class feels I'm doing, identify what they may need, and then have a conversation with them about what changes we may need to make, how I can help, and what I may not be able to change and why.

To me, these beliefs more clearly show the kind of teacher I am than me telling you that students turn in sample 16th century pamphlets, or a series of Game of Thrones clips that mimic Shakespearean scenes.

In hindsight, I can tell you why I didn't get a job.

My dissertation work covers medieval and early modern English literature. I did this in part because job market trends the last few years showed that more and more schools that I was interested in, small liberal arts colleges (SLACs) were combining these positions, advertising for a generalist who could do both, so I was well positioned for this. I feel just as confident covering one as the other, so I also applied to separate medieval and early modern positions.

But here's the sticking point-

While my book based on my dissertation covers the political devil in medieval and early modern English literature, the rest of my publications focus on folklore.

• How the folkloric devil functions in The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ
• The folkloric forest as a character in Twin Peaks.
• The Visual Aesthetics of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.
• The Artificial Construction of the NM Folk Hero Elfego Baca.
• Freddy Krueger as the folkloric bogeyman.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer Board Game as Liminal Space.
• Analyzing Folkloric Horror Elements in Video Games

For me, what each of these pieces explores, and centers around, is applying a folkloric lens to literature and popular culture. I am interested in how folkloric figures represent the fears, anxieties, and desires of a particular historical and cultural moment. What these representations show us about that time period. How these artificial constructions demonize others and establish a norm. The importance of understanding these ARE artificial constructions. How analyzing folkloric figures across literature, and popular culture, reveals patterns across time periods, genres, and disciplines.

This is the work I think is most interesting, and valuable. But I don't think I explained this well enough in my research statement. I don't think I argued strongly enough for the value of this approach, that pushes folkloric studies past just identifying trends and seeks to historicize them, and interrogate how folklore can be analyzed as a moment in amber of the time. 

I think part of the reason I don't do this well is because I was told throughout my PhD program to back off from the folklore, tone it down, do the work, but don't call it that. But this is the heart of my work. It is the most valuable, unique contribution.

Applying a folkloric lens to literature and popular culture is WHY I study medieval and early modern literature and history- I wanted to trace where these ideas and figures came from. This enables me to take a long view of these figures, to see where they came from, how they change and adapt, and what these changes mean.

But because I followed my own interests, and because I started publishing before I ever started my PhD program, and because I was never advised to publish strategically, I can see how someone would look at my list of publications and think I was unfocused, all over the place, not a contributor to medieval and early modern literary studies.

I get that.

In the same breath that I don't care.

Because I know the value of my work. But I also think in hindsight I could have presented it better.

A few weeks ago Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (@Ebonyteach) did a great thread on Twitter about the approach, and struggle (?) of figuring out what it is you do, what your brand is, as you move from student to professor. 

This got me thinking about what my brand is. Yes, I am now an expert on the English devil (feel free to send all devil related toys and items my way). But to me, the most important aspect of my work is the aspect that I was told to bury- pushing the boundaries of applying folkloric studies to literature and popular culture. Folklore studies has long been stagnant, stopping at identifying trends, patterns, and figures in literature and popular culture and not pushing past as to HOW these trends, patterns, and figures are vehicles for fears, anxieties, and desires of the current historical and cultural moment. THAT'S where I live. THAT'S my work. THAT'S my contribution.

It is a unique contribution BECAUSE of my medieval and early modern background and training. 

Hindsight is always 20/20.

And I don't know if I will have a chance to revise any of this and go on the job market again. I don't know if I want to.

But I do know that reflecting on who I am as a teacher and a scholar, knowing how I want to contribute, and move forward, is something that will serve me well no matter what the future brings.

Have You Seen My Inspiration? I Seem to Have Lost It

The last couple of months have passed in a bit of a haze.
I've continued to teach at my high school, taught Saturday school, served on my school's instructional council...and not much else.

Part of this I think is sheer exhaustion.
Part of it is, I'm not sure where I go from here.
It's December, and I've heard nothing on jobs, and part of me isn't really sure what the point is.
I purposely didn't look at many conferences this year because I'll have to pay for all of them out of pocket, and high school teachers don't get anything for them (in fact, I'll be docked the days I take), and if there's no higher ed job, what's the point?

I'm kinda feeling the same way about scholarly work.

What is the point if I'm just going to end up being a high school teacher?

I have a book chapter on biblical epics due by the end of the year that's mostly done.

There's a CFP on medieval chronicles that I really want to do something for- a riff on Macbeth and how Shakespeare changed the chronicle sources to make nationalistic arguments about the dangers of rebelling.
I am editor of a Tiny Collection for Material Collective called #MedievalMarks. The drafts are due to me by the end of the year, and I'll read and give notes and turn around in January.

I have my ShakeAss paper to revise to present in March.
I have a short roundtable piece to draft for Kzoo about pedagogy and my "Dark Devil as Basis For Racist Shit"* paper (*not actual title, although maybe it should be) was rejected from the panel I submitted it for but was accepted for general, so yeah! And I've been percolating on these ideas, so that will be easy.
I also have my notes on FOX's Exorcist to turn into a presentation.

I have a couple of longer, more researched blog posts I want to do. One is my supposed story- my hypothesis of why the English devil is dark and animalistic (it's because of imported Norse mythology and folklore) and why I can't prove it...yet. I'd like to think it will become a much larger piece, perhaps even a book that analyzes the roots of English folklore by tying to maps of monasteries and manuscripts.

But for now, I have this...

As for scholarly work, I have a book contract for the dissertation as book project. So, I am jotting notes in my notebook about large scale revisions, which I will start this summer. One big change is the insertion of a pamphlet chapter, partially based on the original dissertation, but mostly not. It examines how the dark, folkloric devil was used as political rhetoric from 1642-1660 in English pamphlets. I didn't receive any notes from committee of things to consider when turning the diss into a book, so I'm on my own with that, but I also feel like I have a clear idea of where I want the book to go, so I guess I'm okay.
I have an article, an expansion of last year's Kzoo tattoo paper, that applies theory about heavily tattooed women to the narratives of medieval saints written on their body in the Katherine group. I've done the close readings, and the research, but it all needs to be pulled together.
I have an idea, that also came out of the original diss, about writing about different medieval Merlin tales as conversion narratives.

I also have a ridiculously ambitious digital project based on my original dissertation.

It would be an online resource that tracked every literary appearance of the devil in English literature.
The home page would be dominated at the top by a scrolling time line of images and titles. If you click on the image it would provide a brief synopsis, links to the text (online if available, library links if not), and links to the major scholarship.
Side menu pages would deal with categories the devil fits in, and provide analysis of the meaning and significance of these groupings.
It is a huge project that I'd love to pair with a more web savvy person than myself, perhaps a grad student who would like the project credit? But I also think that it wouldn't be ridiculous to get off the ground, and I'd love the chance to learn more.
Once the foundation is there, I can add and build onto it. But I think it would be a great resource, one I'd also ideally like to test run with a class on this, and a way to use all that work I did for the original diss.

So, easily, a year? Maybe two? Of publications and projects to work on. Which is good, right? I mean, I've never been someone who worries that they don't have more work in them.

I published half of my publication credits while teaching high school full time, and teaching for an online high school, and adjuncting at the community college. I published the other half while finishing my doctorate. So clearly, I CAN juggle. I COULD do this.

But here's the thing. I love all these projects. I am excited about researching them, presenting them, writing them.
But if I'm going to be a high school teacher, and not a college professor, then there is absolutely no sense in me doing any of them.
None.
Zero.
Zip.

It's December 11th. There have been no job contacts. No phone interviews. No invitations to Skype. Which means there will be no campus visits, or interviews, or jobs. I put this out on social media and promptly got the- "it's early," "plenty of jobs post late," " I got..." and I just deleted the post. Because I didn't want to hear it. I'm 41 and 3/4. I do not have the time or energy for pie in the sky wishes and dreams.
So I have decisions to make.

I've signed a contract to turn the diss into a book, so I'll do that.
I'll easily complete the chapter on biblical epics.
I'll just as easily finish the conference presentations for the spring.
Editing the Tiny Collection will be fun, but nothing anxiety producing.

But I find myself treading water on the rest.
YES, of course, I think all the rest of the scholarly projects are interesting, and contribute to the field, and I like. But if I'm a high school teacher, there's no reason to do them. In fact, doing them means maybe I'm not picking up the extra Saturday schools to make rent, or my student loan payment.

Plus, isn't continuing to present at conferences, and write articles, just self-flagellation?

Honestly, I have six publications (half journals, half edited collections), sixteen years teaching experience, over a dozen of conference presentations, and a book contract. If I didn't get a job this year, there's nothing that will change that in the next year.
So why bang my head against that wall?

And maybe that's the thing. The thing Kelly Baker talks about so eloquently in Grace Period, the difficulty in letting go. Because it doesn't happen all at once. It's not a clean break. It's saying goodbye to the actual- the teaching job, the place at university. And then it's letting go of the more intangibles- what it's like when you don't have to build a calendar around getting conference papers accepted, so you can turn them into articles or chapters, so you can stay on the hampster wheel of publishing at least one thing a year.
It means not defining yourself by your scholarly publications.
It means that you don't need to keep up with the reading, the book reviews, the list-servs, or Twitter, to stay on top of all the current conversations in my field.

A lot of time post-diss I think is spent figuring out what comes next.
What life is like now that it's all done.
Some of these are big things- how do I want to brand myself as a scholar, how do I juggle responsibilites.
But other ones are just as big, but more basic. How do I pay rent? Where do I want to live? What do I want my life to be?

At this point, I don't know. But I guess I'll figure it out.

The Doctor Will See You Now

Let's begin at the end...

Friday 20 October at 430p, I was told by my director that the committee had decided to pass me, with revisions.
I have until 15 November to complete my revisions, submit them to my director, then the graduate student office, for graduation.

The nature of the revisions are to sharpen and define earlier, and in more detail, some of the terms I use. In particular, how I define the political devil. In some cases, to expand the scope of what I'm talking about, the political aftermath of texts. One note was that in the dissertation, I draw clear lines between the common understanding of the dissertation and the "counter narrative" of the political devil. It was pointed out that there's more slippage here than the writing currently shows, and counter is not the best word, complicates, or non conformist, something like that might be better. I need to show it's not an either or, but a blending. The chapter that had the biggest notes were the Milton chapter, sharpening how Satan is an English devil, how it's nationalist, and to signpost more clearly the equivocation and rhetoric. One note was that a previous edit of the chapter had clearer language. One note was to not focus so much on "Devil" as "devil signifiers in the texts." The introduction does spend a lot of time describing the traditional devil, and then the diss looks at the non-traditional devil, which I think is important-- if I'm going to talk about how the political devil is different from the traditional, I think I need to spend time showing what the traditional is, but I need to be clearer that is how I'm framing it.
They'll be sending me their drafts with notes for reference.

The defense itself did not really go like I thought.
To prep, I reread the dissertation, corrected typos, horrified there still WERE typos, and marking bits I thought would come up. None of them did.
For the most part, I did not need my copy at all. No one said, on page X can you talk more about this. But certainly having read through the whole thing made me feel more confident.
To prep, I created several documents. The first one I created was a chart that I created based on concerns, pet peeves, notes from committee members, that I pulled from previous drafts and emails. I then went through the diss and formulated answers, page numbers where I put the answer, explanations, etc. I created a short Google Slide presentation to go with my written presentation. Originally I wrote my presentation as an outline, but decided the Sunday before defense I really wanted to write it out so if I was nervous, and needed it, I had it written word for word to read off of. It turns out this was a good choice, my best friend who came, said that I was clearly nervous at first, but as I read, it was clear I became more confident. Last weekend, my director recommended I make a handout for my committee, focusing on the major arguments of the texts, so I did. Earlier this week, I thought that methodology might be something I was asked about, so I made a cheat sheet of the major theory in the diss. At the end of my presentation I also had a list of questions that I pulled from reading different articles and advice blogs about common defense questions and my answer. Things like what the biggest problems were, how I came up with the research question, what came next. I emailed the presentation, and handout out to everyone.

The weekend before, I printed all this stuff out, I tested my presentation clicker, I packed my Post-Its, highlighter, pens, and flags.

I packed my professional bag with all these things, my crocheted devil (a gift from a friend and the dissertation mascot the last year), my copy of Grace Period, and the stormtrooper pen case another friend had given me. I packed and unpacked, and packed again the bag double and triple checking I had everything. Then the bag just sat in my office all week. It was one less thing I had to worry about because I knew I had everything I needed and it was all set to go.

I also mailed my thank you gift to one long term committee member, a thank you card to another, and packed/wrapped the two gifts for my committee members I'd see. And then I set them aside until Friday.

The night before, I pulled out my laptop, made sure Skype was up to date (I was Skyping in two committee members). I had also never Skyped two people in, so I looked up on the Internet how to do it, then enlisted two Twitter friends to let me try it out. They both warned about the wonkiness of Skype and recommended using Google Hangouts. So I set up the video call event, sent an email to all to have this as a backup. I also, on their advice, included my phone number. This was the only glitch in the defense- one committee member was in Hangouts, the other texted that there were too many plugins to load, so we went to have them in Skype. But turns out you can't run both programs at the same time. So Hangouts professor switched over to Skype. It was like a five minute delay in starting. So not major.

After I picked up my best friend at the airport Thursday we had dinner, caught up, and to keep me from chasing my own tail, we made devil cupcakes.

I had ordered the edible devil masks from the UK the week before, and bought the mix and stuff. It did exactly what I wanted it to do. It was impossible to make myself a stress ball when catching up with my best friend and making cupcakes.
We took some to defense the next day and handed them out to office staff later.

The defense focused totally on asking me why I made the arguments I did, asking me to justify arguments and choices. No one made a reference to the handout. There were no questions about the methodology. And there wasn't a single question that was anything close to my question list.

I ended up with three pages of notes, and my best friend videoed the defense, which looking at snippets I'm happy about, because as I go to work on revisions, I can listen to it, to make sure I'm on the right track.

My revisions only have to be approved by my director, so this week I plan on drafting an email about the steps to approaching these revisions-- for this comment, my approach was going to be X, for that one, Y. Just to make sure I am on the right track.

I feel fine about the revisions asked of me. And I don't think I'll have any problems completing them by the 15 November deadline. I will say, I've not worked on them at all this weekend. In fact, I only looked at my notes when I sat down to write this post. My best friend flew in from LA Thursday night, I took all day Friday off from my high school teaching job, and we've had a pretty chill weekend. Of course, on a personal note, this week was rough for reasons totally unrelated to the dissertation defense.
Nehi's had what looked like a laceration on her paw pad of the toe that was amputated years ago because she had a tumor. We've been in and out of the vet's office the last month about this-- it's healing, it's not healing, give her twice daily epsom salt baths to draw out the whatever, no walkies, some walks, on and on. Last Saturday was the last vet visit, and vet (not our vet) said it looked fine. But she took a picture of it to show our vet. Who promptly looked at it Monday, decided he didn't want to take chances after a month, and so scheduled a biopsy.
For Friday morning.
So I got up Friday, dropped Nehi off at 745 in the morning. I went back home, and tried to chill before the defense.
I showed my best friend some of the articles/chapters I'd written, and we watched The Nightmare of Elm Street reboot was 2010.
A couple hours later, just as I'm getting ready to get ready for the defense, the vet calls and says that now that Nehi is sedated and he can look at the paw pad without her biting him, it looks much worse, and given the tumor history, he wants to be aggressive and take the whole rest of the toe, not just the biopsy. So I stood in the shower sobbing that my baby was going to be taken from me, and wondering how the hell I was going to get it together to do my defense.
Just before we got ready to walk out the door, they called to say that Nehi came through surgery and was okay, I could pick her up after the defense. It'll be a week of so before we get the results back, but I was able at least to pull it together for my defense.

None of my professors I've had during my time here came to my defense. One graduate student came. So it was just me, my best friend, my director, one in person committee member, and the two who Skyped in. It was a small room, and honestly, this has all been such an ordeal, if it didn't go well, I didn't want witnesses, so that was fine by me. Kind of. I waffled between feeling that, and feeling like no one was celebrating me, which didn't just apply to school, but my family as well, but that's just the reality. It was the same room I defended my prospectus in, so I was familiar with the layout, so I wasn't nervous about any of that.

The defense itself is a bit of a blur. So I'm glad I have my notes and the video for reference. I can say I don't feel like there were any questions I didn't think I could answer, or that I didn't answer, or had a hard time with. Although in several instances I did get the feeling committee members were not satisfied with my answers, but just decided to stop pressing. That may just be my perception.

I think part of why defenses are hard is we don't have a sphere of reference. The format of mine, which my director had explained last weekend, was my presentation, one round of 15 minute questions, then if people wanted, another round of 5 minutes of follow up. My presentation was about 15 minutes. We did an hour of first round of questions, then the follow up round of roughly 20 minutes. Then my best friend, the one graduate student who came, and me, were asked to leave the room, and we stepped outside.

We made small talk, about what I couldn't tell you.

Then my director popped her head out and told us that we could come back in, I sat down, and she told me they had decided to pass me with revisions. She started to go over them, and one of my committee members interrupted her and said, "doctor" which I thought was sweet. My director finished going over the list of revision notes, I took notes. I honestly don't remember what else happened. She asked me if I wanted to add anything, so I thanked everyone, we logged off Skype, those of us there chatted for a while later, then my friend and I left. I called my godmother to tell her the good news sitting in my truck in the parking garage. She squealed, and we promised to Skype later this week to catch up in detail. The first place we stopped was to see my tattoo artist, to tell him the good news. I gave the guys the rest of the cupcakes, and told him I'd see him next Saturday (we've continuing the armbands, Old English script from Genesis B for one arm, Christ and Satan for the other, both the text that describes Satan's fall).

Then we stopped at the vet, picked up Nehi, the staff (especially my vet) made a big deal of calling doctor, made sure they changed it in their system so it came up, and we came home. I texted my step-dad and sister. I emailed my aunts and uncles. I called my grandfather and left a message.
We had dinner, watched X-Files, and I felt bad because Nehi was still all wonky from the anesthesia.
I was asleep by 8p.

Then it was up early yesterday because I had Saturday school to teach.

Daily life goes on.

In many ways, nothing seems different and everything does. I was telling my best friend that much of grad school is like this- you pass one milestone, and there's a beat to celebrate, but then there's something else to do, to keep moving forward. So, I am happy the defense is done, but there are still revisions to do, and then there will be graduation. It doesn't quite seem real that this is the last set of hurdles, that once I complete the revisions, and graduate, this is all done. I am touched my director offered to sit through the three hour university ceremony to hood me. I had not originally planned on going, but since she offered, I am now. Because I've earned this. No one will come, it will just be us, but I deserve to have some pomp and circumstance, and to wear my funny little hat.

It was fun changing my email signature to Dr.
I was overwhelmed and touched at the waves of support all weekend from my Twitter friends. The celebratory gifs in my feed has made me giggle and laugh.
I was touched an older professor, the one who first encouraged me to pursue my doctorate, announced me as doctor to all of Facebook.

My students who came to Saturday school yesterday asked if I passed the defense, and told me congratulations, which was cool.

I feel good about just taking this weekend with my friend. We just hung out yesterday at the house after Saturday school. His mom called me, and told me how proud she was of me. And I cried. Because my mom would have loved this. Oh man, she would have been over the moon. She would have BRAGGED. She would have called me the morning of to buoy me up, she would have sent me a care package to get me through. She would have been insufferable. And I would have loved it. But she's not here. So to have my best friend's mom tell me I was one of her kids, and she couldn't be prouder really meant a lot.
Another friend posted on Facebook how proud she was of me, and she knew my mom would be too. 
I've thought of Mom a lot these last few weeks. I always miss her, but it was particularly sharp these weeks.
My best friend treated me to dinner last night, we're going to go see Blade Runner 2049 today, and he flies home tonight. The revisions, job applications, and my day job will all be there tomorrow, life goes back to normal. I mean, I'm totally going to make people call me doctor, and I totally redid the sign for outside my classroom:

Immediately I can't imagine things will be any different. Once the revisions are done, and submitted, I do wonder what that will feel like, not having that stress constantly on my shoulders. The freedom to realize that what comes next is totally up to me and the type of life I want to live.

I've been thinking a lot about that. I have always moved and chased jobs, my actions dictated by what I needed to do. I have never sat and thought about what I wanted my life to be, where I wanted to live, and had the freedom to make decisions based on that. So I'm excited.

But I do not know what comes next. Where I'll be in a year, or after. But for now, this all seems enough.
I worked incredibly hard to get here. I did it with little help. I did it with no personal support system except Nehi and my tattoo artist. I did it despite overwhelming, soul-crushing obstacles.
I am proud of myself, because I  earned this.
To all who helped along the way...

News and Thank Yous

I was not going to write this post.
I was not going to tell people.

Because I have been here before.
A little over a year ago I asked people for defense advice. I asked for recommendations about committee gifts.

I went with cute little mugs for each area.
With the dissertation hashtag of course.

I got thank you cards made.

I prepped my presentation. I got advice.
I went and got the university's graduation photos made. With Nehi. They were adorable.

Then my world crashed down.
So to say I'm a bit gun shy this time around is an understatement. At first, I only told my best friend, Dion, who is flying out. I am not putting flyers up in my department. If Dion and my two face to face committee members are the only ones who come, I am fine with that.

But we're now at 11 days and counting. It's real. So far my entire committee is on board. This is real. It is happening. I have a super supportive director.

So- I have a defense date.
I've announced it.
I've filed my paperwork.
I have proposed questions the committee might ask, and even better, I have answers!
I have an outline for my talk.
I've printed out the final draft, got it bound, and started to reread it.
I am horrified at typos that made it this far.

So far, fairly normal defense prep.

I don't know what will happen on 20 October at 2p.
I hope a normal defense. I am excited about talking about my dissertation. I want to be excited. I want to celebrate all the hard work I've done, how far I've come. But I find I am waffling between excitement and not trusting the process.

So I've not told people. I've been scared. I've not shared this.

But today, I decided, I will not be robbed of this.
I have busted my ASS to get here. I have written not one, but two, dissertations. I have learned a ridiculous amount. I have cried, and suffered, and gotten through.

I will be excited to see what comes next.
So to all of you who have helped, encouraged, and followed the entire #DevilDiss process these last four years, thank you.

What a Difference a Year Makes

Yesterday I met with my director, a check in meeting after a month, to see where the dissertation was. I was not worried about the meeting, because she'd sent me the diss with her notes before the meeting to read. Her email included the sentence "I am very impressed by it" and "Bravo."

Her notes were minor. Like super minor. She only had one overarching comment- that in the Introduction and Chapters Three and Four I did a great job of emphasizing the rhetoric of the devil and she just wanted me to shore up that thread in Chapters One and Two. But she said it was fine to send out to my committee members and an outside expert who said they'd read it and give me feedback, and to read it with an eye of setting a defense date.

So I fixed the minor notes and just sent it all off.

After our five and half hour meeting yesterday, as I walked out of my director's house, she reminded me of where we were a year ago.

A year ago, I had the worst summer in my life. That summer began with me thinking I was defending, being told I couldn't. Not only could I not defend, but the entire dissertation had to be thrown out and I had to start again. I was unsure how to do any of this, was unsure if I needed to make changes to my director or committee. And I had no idea of how I was going to do all of this with the full time high school job I took to get me through the gap year between when I thought I was graduating and the job market year.

This last year was hard. I worked full time at my high school. I taught a large online Shakespeare class in the fall and spring for my university. I rewrote the entire dissertation from scratch during the fall semester, my new director had a draft by 1 January. And we spent spring semester refining, reshaping. This work was hard for me, because the formal writing of academia is a challenge to me. It was really with this last draft that my argument, my rhetoric, my style, met formal academic writing standards. It was hard. But I did it.

This morning I sat down with the small notes my director had and fixed them. Silly things- I'd forgotten to put inclusive pages on some entries in the Works Cited (BTW- how did people fix these things before Google Books?), a couple of spacing issues, nothing big. But that was it. I saved it, I composed emails to my committee members, and I sent it all off.

Last night, Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom) wrote a great thread on Twitter about the trauma of finishing your dissertation.

Even though I'm not defended or finished, it resonated with me. Because my entire dissertation process has been traumatic, why not expect the post-defense to be.
There's an dissertation acknowledgement I can't find now but it blames any errors in the dissertation on contact with so many demonic texts. I can relate. I have certainly felt cursed a lot of this past year. But I am also blessed. I am blessed that my director believes in me. She has supported me, she has helped me. My other committee members have known just the right questions to ask to get me where I needed to be. I have had an amazing online support network to answer questions and be cheerleaders. Last summer an online friend graciously offered me her writing group, and they have been great supporters, every week as I sat down on Saturdays to rewrite, then revise the diss, they were there for me.

I know this is not the end. Committee members will probably have notes. They may set a later defense date than I want. But my director and I had prepped the committee that we were aiming to have the entire draft to them mid-August for a mid-September defense, so I'm hoping what we end up with is close.

This may not be the end, but it's certainly in sight. Considering a year ago I never thought I'd make it here, didn't not think I had it in me to start over, rewrite it all, this is a big day.

So I've printed my Chapters One and Two to punch up the rhetoric of the devil in them, and I'll work on this while I'm waiting for notes from the committee members, which I hope to get in a timely manner. I report back to my full time teaching job Monday, but for the first time in decades, it'll be the first time I just have one job because I'm not teaching for my uni.

So I have some time, some breathing room. And we'll see what that's like.

But I believe now, in ways I didn't during a lot of this year, that I will defend. I will pass. I will graduate. I will be Dr. Karra Shimabukuro.

To all who helped me get here, who believed in me, thank you.

Medievalists Need To Do Better: Some Thoughts on How We Choose Our Conference Spaces

Medieval studies is not doing so well.
In the last year or so, as a field, we've been faced with rampant misogyny, racism, white-washing, and appropriation. And as a collective group, we have not responded well. We have been angry. We have ignored what it is pointed out to us. We have not listened. "Knee-jerk" seems to be the reaction in a lot of cases. Not thoughtful reflection. In some cases, we have denigrated and insulted colleagues and resulted in name calling on public platforms and social media.

As a graduate student, I have cringed at most of these interactions and I know from back channel conversations with other grad students that I am not alone.

I have several different responses, some are more nuanced than others, and I admit that in some instances, I am speaking outside of my field. But I think these conversations are important.

My work is on the devil. Who he is. How he is seen in literature. How he functions as a folkloric figure, the vehicle for the fears, anxieties, and desires, of a particular historical and cultural moment. In my work I have often used the phrase "demonizing Others." While I had one professor a couple of years ago suggest subaltern or altern was "becoming" the more used term, various people reading various drafts have not interrogated my use of the term, or mentioned that it was problematic. My work is not postcolonial, although I have some overlap with this, but I am not an expert. As my dissertation moved past analyzing a visually and ethnically different "Other" I thought less and less about the term, its history, and its implication.
While my current work has shifted away from this some, my work on the devil overlaps a lot with how marginalized groups are constructed as threats, dangers, adversaries, devils. I have a project I'm working on that analyzes seventeenth-century political pamphlet language  that invokes the devil, and draws comparisons to modern-day political discourse. These conversations often include colonial and post-colonial ideas and biases. I wonder what the line is between using terms as a narrative shorthand, something people will recognize, and doing modern work that is inclusive and acknowledges the situation we're all writing, researching, and presenting in.

Our entire field has become complicated by modern-day white supremacists using our work, the things we hold dear, as evidence in their hateful arguments, symbols of their hate. Grad students and scholars alike wonder where this leaves them and their work. The people I have spoken to, mostly grad students, believe that our engagement with these problematic issues- appropriation of symbols, speaking out, correcting misinterpretations of texts, images, and runes, are now part of the work our scholarship- both published and public, needs to now do.
But some of us are unsure.
Those of us with medieval images and script as tattoos, are we now running the risk of being mistaken for racists? Is our art a counter narrative or are we lumped in by association? Given the permanence of our work, there's not a lot we can do. It has become a reality that these things may cause us to be judged by others in ways never intended. Loves and interests of our youth- the symbols and languages that for many of us got us into medieval studies, are now often problematic.

But, I believe that just as the texts we teach, the online conversations we have, the blogs we post, it is part of our responsibility now to correct the record. Speak out. The Public Medievalist's series on Race and Racism in the Middle Ages is, I think, part of what this engagement and work should look like.

But it is a minefield.

Particularly for grad students, adjuncts, early career scholars, speaking out, interrogating or working with these complicated, sensitive ideas and long-held concepts can be tricky. It's easy to misstep. It's easy to have things taken out of context. Senior scholars can yell at you. Publicly. Things can get nasty.
As teachers, I'd like to think that our end goal is a better educated populace. But educating others, helping younger scholars, has not always been the tone I've seen. And vulnerable people, students or staff, can't really comment on that because of the reasons above. So it's tricky. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try, that this is not now part of the work we must do.

It seems as though much of this has solidified the last year. We've had conferences and speakers, and blog posts that have pointed out just how backwards some things still are. In part I think this is because many of academia's structures are outdated, antiquated, and slow to evolve and adapt the way we need to. Out world moves really fast now, and our field is still slow to react and change. And this is not a good thing. Of the people I know and listen to, the series of these varyingly awful events were an impetus to do better, do more.

Then came LEEDS. And the disappointing follow-up conversations. In many ways the events of LEEDS ratcheted up the awful. And unfortunately, it seems like people's reactions have also been turned up to 11. As a grad student, I look to senior scholars for guidance. How to respond, both in tone and content. The best platform, guidance on how to work through. And I admit to being disappointed in some people whose work I previously admired.
But I also learned from these conversations. As hard as some things were to hear, it made me reexamine how I used "Other" in my dissertation. I realized I was perpetuating postcolonial issues without any acknowledgement. While I thought my use of "Other" was more the in quotes that has been recommended to signal its problematic nature, I was perpetuating awful biases and presentations. So I went back through the dissertation and changed all my references, and included a note as to why. I do not want to contribute to erasure and racism. So I read, I listened, I changed.

But I also did not ask for help or clarification, or for anyone to read over a section to make sure it did what I wanted and didn't fall into pitfulls. Because I am afraid to. As a grad student, I completely understand not asking marginalized groups to do more invisible labor because others are unwilling. But as a grad student too, I have no wish to be yelled at or called names. And I realize that statement can be read as tone-policing, which I don't mean, but recognize too that intent doesn't matter.

I told you it was complicated.

As a grad student I want to learn, to do better, to understand why and how we must adapt and change, and then do that. I want to incorporate other fields, and be interdisciplinary. But there is danger in exploring outside your field. And my ability to DO that is limited when senior scholars in my field make it appear as though questions and genuine interest in doing better construct me as something I'm not.

And I worry about this. Because I don't think this is an environment to improve. Even though I understand why this is the response.

Into all of this, I read Adam Miyashiro's post on ISAS in Hawai'i this week. 
He makes great points. Given the environment we're now in, all that is going on, all the issues that have come to public surface, the placement of this conference in Hawai'i was the perfect opportunity for improvements. Real change. And it was another awful fail.
I understand conferences are scheduled and planned months in advance, but these are not new issues. I wonder how many instances, how many conferences we're going to have that are condemned, before we change anything.

I am not a POC. I am a white woman. Whose step-dad, and adopted family is Japanese by way of Hawai'i. While I am often defined by the poverty I grew up in, I have a huge amount of privilege. I do not claim any special status. But last night, after reading Miyashiro's post, I had some thoughts, as someone whose family is from Hawai'i. Which I thought I'd share. At first it was just a thread (which I've included below, with some images, and some hyperlinks not in the original in the interest of a starting point for reading).

But I kept thinking about it all. How important these issues are, particularly for those of us who are new to the field, and are deeply invested in how this field presents itself, contributes, and acts.

I hope all of these conversations continue. I hope we make things better. I hope we educate, correct, and speak up. But I also hope we do it with kindness. I hope we give role models to younger scholars coming up.

Twitter Thread
Some random thoughts but not fully formed, so perhaps forgive. My step-dad is Japanese. The family is from Okinawa. Came over in 30s. 1/
They worked plantations- pineapple and sugar in communities called camps that still exist as similar to sharecropping, bought land after 2/

My great-grandma raised six kids on own because great-grandad went back to homeland for WW II. If you know your history you'll get irony 3/
My grandpa lives in house he was raised in. Large extended family & camp members. I have never felt so white as when I visited him 4/

Everyone white person should know this feeling. Japanese & Hawai'ians are majority. And as evidenced by haole there are strong lines 5/
I'll add too, that the conflicts between the Japanese/Okinawans that came over at the beginning of the 20th century and native Hawai'ians, is also interesting history that would have made for great basis to think about medieval studies.
I was looked askance at. Treated differently UNTIL grandpa introduced me as his granddaughter. Then everything changed 6/

Another thing that struck me about all this being from tourist area was what a crock of packaged shit Hawai'i is. I mean that as positive 7/
Resorts, luaus are packaged, colonial crap. They're super smart- they realized what people wanted & they charged fortunes. Good on them 8/

Unless you have native friends or guides (and actually have them, not pay what you think this experience is) you will never know Hawai'i 9/
I mention all this because issues of how we frame our world, our scholarship, our voices, & amplify voices of others have come back up 10/
And rightly so. Our fields because of slow speed of old structures don't evolve & adapt as they should and need to. 11/
So to any & all of my friends in Hawai'i this week I challenge you to leave the resort. Read & listen to ACTUAL history not tourist crap 12/

 

Sit in a cafe, walk the streets, realize you're the minority. Think about that. Think about role of military there. 13/
Think about stolen, kidnapped queens. Lost culture. Lost sovreignty. Having to commodify culture to survive. Accept waves of foreigners in 30s. Lose more 14/
Think about what is displayed & presented. Versus what is true. Think about why this place was chosen for this conference. 15/
If it was not chosen to illustrate how ALL these things should be questions we integrate into our field, our scholarship, our teaching...16/
Then you have to face fact that it was chosen so white people could justify a resort vacation in Hawai'i. Accepting @ face value. 17/

If you go and that's what you get it's because that's what you wanted and didn't dig deeper. And will come back having learned nothing 18/
Do better. Visit sanctuary sites. Listen, don't talk. Observe. See beneath. Then reflect. And bring THAT back to you. 19/19

The Syllabus of Me

I was on Twitter way past my bedtime last night, for not great reasons.
But I am grateful for encountering this tweet:

A friend RTed it.
What an amazing idea. Not for someone to do for their field, although that would be an interesting exercise for scholars to see where they are, to see what were/are foundational texts for them, who their influencers are. I also think that given the latest controversy in medieval studies, as well as Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega @raulpacheco continued calls to examine our syllabus to see if we're being equitable in covering women, POC, other voices. 

But when I first read this initial tweet,  I thought of teachers, of new TAs, and grad students. What an amazing idea for them to do. Not for their field, although I'm sure there'd be some overlap, just for them, as people. I think this might help them "see" who they are, what they value.
The follow up tweets lay out more of what the structure could be (and continues past this...) 

So, here is my #SyllabusOfMe.
I encourage others to do this. I think it has value. Post and link on Twitter, or if you like, I'll curate and link here.