The Epic Saga continues...

Funny how our sense of word changes over time. As I typed the title to this post, I realized that Epic and Saga are, in some ways, closely related. Of course, in this instance, "epic" has become an adjective and Saga remains a noun. Which makes all the difference, right? R.W. Southern wrote about "From Epic to Romance" as the movement of medieval literature -- but what on earth would he have done with an epic romance?

Anyway, I'm swamped with work of late. I seem to be slowly sinking into the abyss of only vegetating in my spare time -- I watch a lot of TV while sending emails and doing other tasks (in mere moments I plan to flip on Buffy the Vampire Slayer while folding laundry). Granted, there isn't much spare time in the end -- I've been really slammed with extra worries this past week (including a death of a friend's dad last weekend and his wake and funeral, and my mom's hospitalization...though thankfully she's fine). However, I am continuing to adore teaching -- I feel like it's something I really have a talent for. I have to say that tonight -- otherwise I'll get too depressed when drafts come in tomorrow! However, they're engaging their assignments with enthusiasm worthy of -- well -- really enthusiastic people! which is good, since enthusiasm is pretty much all I have to offer them as a first-year instructor. So at least it's lively.

Have also begun my orals reading -- Finished From Memory to Written Record and have moved to De Doctrina Christiana. I'm already feeling confident I've done the right thing orals-wise too -- everything seems to fit in quite nicely. But more on that another time.

For now, laundry awaits, as does my reasoning behind my title: You might have heard that J.R.R. Tolkien is publishing his final volume from beyond the grave. As an informal poll, how many of you have read all that extra stuff Christopher Tolkien has made available? Not all of it -- just any part. Including Silmarillion. And most importantly -- what did you think?

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To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

Imagine my suprise when I saw this article in the New York Times.

I've been saying for years -- with little to no irony -- that Star Trek was one of the most fascinating shows I'd ever seen, because of its social consciousness. Although Ron Moore is certainly a biased author (as he freely admits here) -- I'm glad to find that there's some one else out there who realized. Star Trek was an important part of my movement from the conservative background I grew up in to the more liberal stance I've taken today. Its role as social commentary was astoundingly inflential for me: I still remember the aliens who were at eternal war because they were black and white -- but one was black on the left, white on the right, and in the other it was reversed. And though the later shows were certainly more complex, they too addressed difficult issues in ways I, in high school, could identify with and understand -- witness the commentary on religion and politics that was brought to the fore in Deep Space Nine, with the tensions between the Bajoran provisional government after the Cardassian occupations and the theocracy preferred by members of the religious order, like Kai Winn (played to a malificent perfection by Louise Fletcher).

I think Moore sums it up for me when he says this:

Kirk, for me, embodied an American idea: His mission was to explore the final frontier, not to conquer it. He was moral without moralizing. Week after week, he confronted the specters of intolerance and injustice, and week after week found a way to defeat them without ever becoming them. Jim Kirk may have beat up his share of bad guys, but you could never imagine him torturing them.

A favorite quote: “We’re human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we won’t kill today.” Kirk clearly understood humanity’s many flaws, yet never lost faith in our ability to rise above the muck and reach for the stars.

Ok, so Moore's romancing a bit -- I'll give him that Kirk didn't torture the alien bad guys, but I have to say that the whole "conquer their women" thing is a little murkier. And god knows its a terribly fine line. But all my academic inclinatiosn aside, he's right -- One need look no further than Star Trek VI : The Undiscovered Country to make the point. When the high chancellor of the Klingon empire speaks to Kirk on the subject of the possibility of peace (and it is important to remember that the Klingons were the bad guys throughout the original series) he sums up the problem that will plague them: "If there is to be a brave new world, it's going to be our generation that has the hardest time living in it." Star Trek may be kitsch at moments but I think it's the refusal to take it seriously that is so deeply sad. It models so well what television can be, what it can do. The questions it can raise that the majority of people never have a forum to ask, or consider.


I guess my point is that Star Trek, though certainly simplistic in many ways (not least of which its approach to Jim Kirk's role as "American idea"), was a vision of the future I, like Moore, could hope for. Maybe humanity would improve. Maybe we could learn from the past. Maybe there was hope for the future. Maybe Star Trek, for all its nerd status, got one thing right: Television is a place where social commentary and serious reflection can take place. It doesn't always have to be simple entertainment, or "reality TV" that only proves we haven't the slightest idea of what the first term means.

So -- yes. This, I suppose, is why I don't really mind being a dork.

In other notes, after a long hiatus I am back to blogging. May not be as frequent as I'd like, but I do hope to use it as I begin my orals reading. Which, for the record, is officially begun: I started it with From Memory to Written Record this weekend. Coming up this week: Augustine, translation theory and Derrida. And more teaching, which I am adoring. But more on all that another time.

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And so it begins...

...a new school year, and a new phase of my career as a student. This time, as a student and as a teacher. That's right, I am officially a teacher as of today. At 9.10 AM, I began my first freshman composition course. I was a little sleepy and nervous. They were a little sleepy and nervous. We talked about what writing is, what it can do -- what we wish to do in this course. I made an aesthetically pleasing syllabus, and realized that I have no sense of how long things take.

I let them go early, with no homework (it's their first day, first class -- moreover, first day and first class of college). Thursday things start in earnest -- exercises, reading, writing. But today we sat, new teacher with equally new students, introduced ourselves, and laughed over the rain that has been falling in the City for over a week (with a short break this weekend, to be fair).

I think it's going to be a great year.

Moreover, I think it's going to be a fun career.

And now I'm off to a linguistics course. Life is good.

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