CAS: Arts and Sciences Writing Program Scholarly Papers
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Item Iliad ad Nihilum: Psychê, Conscience, WonderDegener, MichaelItem Perspectives on teaching with Wikipedia in writing courses before and during the pandemic(Elsevier, 2023-01-01) Shetty, Malavika; Choi, HelenIn this article, the authors discuss their perspectives on the Wikipedia writing assignment prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic and how this assignment was well-suited for use in emergency situations to maintain learning. In particular, they explore how the Wikipedia writing assignment has helped their students fulfill various learning objectives of their undergraduate writing coursework, such as applying critical thinking skills, evaluating sources, writing neutral prose, and producing public-facing writing (Vetter et al., 2019). They present the implications of using Wikipedia to fulfill aspirations of inclusion and accessibility in demographically diverse writing classrooms and its role as a digital teaching tool during remote learning. In addition, the authors reflect upon their individual experiences using Wikipedia at their respective institutions and discuss their colleagues and students' feedback. The authors provide examples of their students' edited pages, along with specific assignment sheets and materials to illustrate how Wikipedia can be used effectively in the context of the writing class, both before and during the pandemic, to prepare students to be reflective practitioners and critical evaluators of information.Item “How do assignments dispose students toward research? Answer-getting and problem-exploring in first-year writing” Composition Forum(Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition, 2022-05-11) Madsen Hardy, Sarah; Kordonowy, Gwen; Liss, KenThis study explores the relationship between the dispositions toward research that writing teachers convey through their assignments and those that their students express in their reflective writing. We applied the term problem-exploring to a set of dispositions described by the ACRL Framework and coded each clause of instructor assignment text and student reflective writing from six FYW sections, half of which were working with a librarian to incorporate core concepts from the Framework. We found a strong correlation between the proportion of instructors’ problem-exploring assignment language and students’ expressions of problem-exploring at end of term. The rates of problem-exploring were significantly higher for instructors and students in sections working with the Framework. Our results offer a new lens through which to view research-assignment design, provide evidence of how assignments can foster problem-exploring, and support the value of pedagogical collaboration with librarians.Item POV: artificial intelligence is changing writing at the university. Let’s embrace it(BU Today, 2022-12-05) McVey, ChristopherItem Who are my paesani? On remembering Randolph Bourne and forgetting about diaspora(2019-11-30) Pasto, JamesItem Nor Could I Name Them: Homer Plays the MuseDegener, MichaelThe essay reexamines the classical conception of Homer as the naïve, muse-inspired poet in Iliad two. Part I, The Messenger, considers Zeus’ dispatching of messenger Dream to transmit his false message as a figure for the poet’s transmission of the poem in the thrall of the Muses and asks whether we can take at face value the poet’s putatively humble self-reflection on his mortal limitations and dependency on the Muses to accurately recite the catalogue of forces. Part II, The Message, assesses specific passages in the catalogue as instances of invention in the service of the individual poet’s counter narrative to the traditional theme of mênis inaugurated in Achilles’ curse of pothê at 1.240. Woven into the catalogue of forces are three cases that advance the narrative of pothê inaugurated in book one. The first case establishes the paradigm whereby the principal leader of the fighting band dies resulting in the pothê of his laoi which must be redressed by the substitution of the therapôn. The second case represents a legitimate exception to the rule while the third case sets up the illegitimate substitution of Patroclus for Achilles while still living.Item Theogony 215-16: Cronos’ Golden Hesperides, or Sheep for Apples?Degener, MichaelThe study proposes an alternative correction of the apparent transposition of lines 213 & 214 in The Theogony to replace Hermann’s proposed correction upheld in M. L. West’s standard edition. The alternative ordering of the lines herein proposed provides for the recovery of a homology between The Theogony and The Works and Days that aligns the Hesperides with the Gold generation. Along with this realignment of the two works there arises a novel perspective on the question as to whether the mēla associated with the Hesperides, long supposed to be apples, are rather sheep as is the case in the homologous passage in The Works. The prospect of taking sheep for apples here opens a series of issues with ontological and mythical implications leading finally to prospects for exploration of further homologies between Hesiod’s and Homer’s poems, most pointedly in connection with Odysseus’ katabasis.Item Helm to helm, shield to shield: Menestheus' idiosyncratic tactic in Homer's IliadDegener, MichaelThe study presents a novel approach to the longstanding debate regarding the presence of hoplite or proto-hoplite tactics in The Iliad arguing that the tactic is indeed in evidence as an expression of the fully egalitarian sensibilities of a late Iliad by a Homer who deftly provides for his Athenian provenance and anti-aristocratic sensibilities to be disclosed through a more incisive reading. The key to resolving the question depends upon a more sustained scrutiny of the heretofore underappreciated role of the Athenian contingent led by Menestheus whose like in the tactical arrangement of horse and shield-bearing men, the hoplite tactic, “had never been seen before on earth.” The complexities of the narrative construction, launched in the catalogue in book two and then winding through the middle books with a focused consideration of those forces led by Telamonian Ajax in hoplite formation, finally resolve in the hoplite formation of the Myrmidons led by Patroclus in Achilles’ absence as an egalitarian leader of the laos from the laos.Item Blue-collar conservatism: Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia and populist politics(2019-02-13) Blumenthal, SethItem Euphorbus' plaint and plaits: the unsung valor of a foot soldier in Homer's Iliad(2021) Degener, MichaelThe essay addresses Euphorbus’ role in the death and stripping of Patroclus. Is Homer “nodding” when Achilles’ armor is found together with Patroclus’ corpse for which Euphorbus returns to secure his genuine kleos? No. Homer suppresses one piece of information: Euphorbus seized Achilles’ armor and dons it. He seeks Patroclus’ corpse as evidence he did not take Achilles’ armor opportunistically. Hector comes by the armor opportunistically, taking it without slaying Patroclus―nor Achilles―and is thus but the “holder” of Achilles’ armor as Menelaus, puts it, echoed by Glaucus, heckling Hector as he “who holds the kleos of a coward.”Item Medea 1079: (My) Thumos is GreaterDegener, MichaelIn lieu of the presumption that in line 1079 of the Medea is a genitive of comparison and that, therefore, the line must be read in the sense of A (thumos) is greater than B (bouleumata), the author proposes to begin again by reading the genitive as simply modifying thumos: “the thumos of my plans is greater.” But greater than what? Greater than the thumos of Jason’s plans. Medea’s novel bouleumata, that is, her plans to kill the children, will supplant Jason’s established bouleumata to marry Creusa. This approach, however, leads us back to a new rereading of the presumed comparative grammar of the line: A is greater than B; however, A is no longer Medea’s thumos, but rather the hypostasis of an ironically malevolent, tragi-heroic thumos that transcends the human agency of the scheming from which it arises. It is the song of this dæmonic thumos, which provides for a peculiarly tragic kleos superior to anything a male warrior could accomplish by simply dying courageously in battle, that will be sung by Euripides’ novel Muse of women.Item Pedagogy of and for the public: imagining the intersection of public humanities and community literacy(Florida International University, 2020) Burg, JacobAs a graduate student in the humanities, I am often fearful that my labor is performed for the sake of performing labor. Exacerbated by academia’s increasingly precarious landscape, this fear requires a hopeful antidote: a new pedagogy of and for the public. Constructed through empathic conversations between universities and communities, this new approach to public scholarship and teaching relies on the aims and practices of community literacy (e.g. sustainable models of multi modal learning, social justice, and community listening) in order to refocus the humanist’s work – particularly the disjointed labors undertaken by graduate students – around the cultivation of publics and counter publics. In turn, a pedagogy of and for the public also implements the digital frameworks and organizational tools of public humanities projects to enliven community literacy praxis. Graduate student conferences are one site where we could enact this jointly constructed approach. By rearticulating these conferences’ capacity for professionalization, by expanding their audience, and by reimagining their form beyond the university context, I argue that we can establish sustainable programs aimed at expanding community literacies.Item Innovation through the flipped model of learning: enriching students' and instructors' experience(InScience Press, 2018-06-29) Zlateva, Maria; Fassihi, ParyThe paper provides a brief literature review of the FML, a description of the FML experience within the context of a multi-year project in a major research university – from designing to producing and integrating it into the second-language writing curriculum – and recommendations for scalable implementation. Special attention is given to the benefits of this approach for students as well as to its broader pedagogical advantages.Item Best practices in flipping the higher education English as a second language acadeemic writing courses(IATED, 2016-07) Fassihi, ParyHigher Education academic writing courses in the United States are often fast-paced with a vast amount of material to cover. Class time is on average an hour, and professors often feel rushed to complete the planned material. The professor often needs more time to provide the writing skills’ lessons during class, being left with little or no time for more personalized in-class writing workshops and direct feedback. A flipped learning method, in which students receive instruction in various formats (online, audio, video, print, etc.) prior to the session, and come to class prepared to practice, has unique benefits for higher education English as a Second Language (ESL) writing courses. The flipped learning style provides a more personalized learning environment for students, in which they have the opportunity to follow online instruction at their own pace, and receive personalized feedback from their instructor during in-class workshops. Providing an engaging face-to-face environment by adopting various technological methods can provide a richer learning experience and preparedness for these international students while focusing on their culture, learning styles, as well as learning abilities. This paper will focus on some of the best practices for flipping higher education ESL writing courses with the use of technology. In addition, the paper will offer creative and innovative techniques and recommendations to personalize students’ learning experience and turn them into independent thinkers and editors by adopting the flipped learning method.Item “Information literacy in the writing classroom: a collaborative approach"(2018-04-06) Madsen Hardy, Sarah; Liss, KenItem Impressionism in philosophy: Spinoza, Deleuze, and networked ontology(2019-10-06) Desilets, SeanItem Dante Gabriel Rossetti's salutation of Beatrice pictures as Victorian comics(2018) Martinez, MicheleItem World-hating: apocalypse and trauma in We Need to Talk about Kevin(MDPI AG, 2017-11-13) Desilets, S. J.Lynne Ramsay’s 2011 film We Need to Talk about Kevin alternates between two narrative times, one occurring before its protagonist Eva’s son commits a terrible crime, and one after. The film invites us to read the crime as a traumatic event in Eva’s life, an event of such terrible force that it transforms Eva’s identity. This essay uses Jacob Taubes’s understanding of Gnosticism to suggest that this event does not transform who Eva is, but rather how she knows. Like a Gnostic believer, Eva comes to understanding the fundamental ontological evil of community life. Eva’s ‘trauma,’ her alienation from the world she occupies, predates Kevin’s crime, but the aftermath of that crime reveals her alienation to her. The worldview thus presented by the film casts some light on how art house films are marketed. Like many middlebrow products, art house films present marketers with the challenge of concealing the fact that the commodity they are selling is indeed a commodity. This ambivalent distrust of the marketplace is a softened repetition of the Gnostic’s anticosmism, and We Need to Talk About Kevin both performs and thematizes a displacement from the world that is primary, not contingent upon any traumatic event.Item Absurd dignity: the rebel and his cause in Jean Améry and Albert Camus(2016-12) Anderson, I. L.