21 March 2007
My English Teachers, Part 2
During my first school years—grades 1-4—we lived in Banner Elk, NC, which is now surrounded by fancy ski-resorts and full of upscale retirement or vacation “cottages.” When we lived there, it was a pretty, but not wealthy town with a one school for first through eighth grades, a county high school, a junior college (now a 4-year college), a hospital, and an orphanage (now a shelter for abused children, youth, and families). I certainly remember all of my elementary school teachers—Mrs. Coffey, whom every first-grader loved; Miss Laura Hall, who held the second graders to high standards in cursive writing and weaving streamers precisely around the annual Maypole; Mrs. Madison, who thwacked my palm when I couldn’t do third-grade arithmetic, thus inadvertently pointing me towards a literary career; and twinkling Mrs. Perry, the most charming fourth-grade teacher ever. However, I have to say that the teacher who influenced me most to love literature during this time was not an official teacher at all, but a family friend and neighbor, Mrs. Linder. After her husband’s death she had retired to their rustic vacation cottage in Banner Elk long before it was a fashionable place to be; the two of them had had lived well, read widely, and traveled far.
Mrs. Linder’s house was crammed with books and souvenirs from exotic countries, and because she loved books, she had collected many objects with literary connections or significance. At least once or twice a year she would invite a small group of “young ladies” to tea. Mrs. Linder, a tiny, smiling, white-haired lady, welcomed us in. The table would be set with delicate china cups and saucers. If we were especially fortunate—and the weather was pleasant—tea would be served in the “tea house,” which seemed like a miniature playhouse to us, but was, I suppose, modeled after a Japanese tea house. Also on the table—figurines of china, glass, or carved ivory or wood. “This is Chanticleer,” she would explain, holding up a brightly-colored china rooster, and tell us her version of Chaucer’s story from “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale;” or holding up a miniature ivory whale, “Here is Moby-dick, the white whale!” I recall we were particularly intrigued by a cast-iron music box in the shape of a pirate seated on a chest full of gold, with which she illustrated “Treasure Island.”
At eight- or nine-years-old, of course, I had never read any of these books, and I would not read them for myself for many, many years after this, but Mrs. Linder made hunting whales, and roosters tricking foxes, and pirate treasure, sound so exciting that eventually I was ready and willing to give them a try. “Pieces of eight!”
13 March 2007
My English Teachers (Part 1)
I suppose I could also entitle this series, “How I became an English professor,” although I really did not start out with that career in mind at all. In fact, most people don’t end up in the careers for which their college majors supposedly prepare them, and yet they are still gainfully and often happily employed. I should also acknowledge my inspiration for these retrospectives, my editor and colleague studying English and popular culture, David Lavery, currently occupying the Chair in Film and Television at the Brunel University, London, who blogged his literary inspirations last year.
Naturally, or rather, fortunately, my first English teachers were my parents, who were great readers and who read all kinds of books to me and my two siblings practically from the time we were born. I say “fortunately,” because all too many parents do not read to their children, and yet, as I was telling my English 102 students the other day, reading aloud with children is one of the best ways to encourage their future academic success. Besides that, it’s just fun!
Among the books my parents gave to us and read with us: almost every title by Dr. Seuss, A.A. Milne’s poems When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, as well as the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, the Jungle Books of Rudyard Kipling (we especially loved hearing the story of the snake-fighting Indian mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, because we actually had a pet African mongoose for a while), and the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I still have my battered, mismatched set! When my sister, brother and I were older—in junior high and high-school—my father decreed that we would read a book together as a family during summer vacations. The two that I remember best are To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. We still kid my dad about the earnest wisdom of Ben Franklin, but we would not trade those evenings together on the patio of our cottage by Lake Munkamba for anything. That was what I learned from my first English teachers, my parents—however wonderful a story may be, it’s even better when you share it with those you love.
21 February 2007
Remembering our “Common Ground”
I’m teaching the usual four classes this semester: two sections of English 102 (freshman composition with a focus on reading and writing about literature), World Literature, and Chaucer. In one of those odd coincidental confluences of events that Jung called “synchronicity,” almost all of the texts assigned today had themes of mortality in some form: passages from the “Tibetan Death Rituals and Dream Visions” in World Lit; several poems about carpe diem (“seize the day”) and memento mori (“remember you must die” or “reminder of death”) in Freshman Comp, such as Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” two poems about the Titanic, and Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “Common Ground.” The day began with book five of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, which famously ends with the death of Troilus and a meditation that “to such an end leads this false world's instability.” What is up? I really did not plan all these assignments together, but as it happens, today is Ash Wednesday, when many Christians throughout the world will be remembering their mortality, that God has “created us out of the dust of the earth.” The ashes of Ash Wednesday are meant to serve as “a sign of our mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is only by Your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life,” in the words of the Book of Common Prayer.
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3.19)
Since we have hope in Christ, it’s not a bad thing to remember our mortality, our “common ground” with humanity. John Donne talked about it in his “Meditation 17,” famous for the line “Ask not for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.” T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding is a meditation on this mystery as well. .
29 January 2007
A Book a Day
A dream! or a nightmare! or both? My brother gave me "The Book Lover's Calendar" page-a-day calendar for Christmas, and now every morning there's a tempting new book title and synopsis staring me in the face. If only I could drop everything, rush out (or click away) to the nearest bookstore or library and start reading some of the books that have fluttered past just this month, such as the Sherlock Holmes take-offs by Caleb Carr (The Italian Secretary) and Michael Chabon (The Final Solution), or the biography of astronomer Henrietta Leavitt by George Johnson, or one that's been on my "To-Be-Read" list for a long time, Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. Oh look—on February 2 there’s a novel I’ve actually read—The Jewel in the Crown, by Paul Scott. Usually each page of such a calendar goes straight into the trash, but I want to keep a list of some of these tempting titles, because someday, I'll have time for them all. What am I actually reading? A lot of Chaucer, particularly Troilus and Criseyde, right now. Ancient Greek drama for the World Lit. course. And various short stories and poems for English 102. And just for fun, at my niece’s recommendation, The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer.
20.November.2006
English Majors like art!
Sunday afternoon, my husband and I met several members of the Mabel Powell English Club, and a few professors from English, History, and Foreign Language Departments, at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. We had reservations for the “Monet in Normandy” exhibition, the only east coast venue for this major art show. The museum parking lot was packed, but we didn’t have to wait in line for our designated 3:00 p.m. trek through Monet’s artistic career. Stunning paintings, beautifully lit, from galleries and private collections all over the world. Some had never been shown publicly before. We were awed by the light, color, and skill in these paintings that no reproduction can possibly capture. Truly, “a thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
31.October.2006
For All Saints
It’s “Hallowe’en.” We were talking about this day in adult Sunday school at my church. “All Hallows Eve” is one of several formerly pagan festivals which the church took over and “baptized.” On November 1 the church celebrates All Hallows Day or All Saints Day. Christmas—formerly the Roman festival of Saturn and also (before a calendar reform) the winter solstice. Easter—the name comes from a pagan fertility goddess whose symbols were rabbits (reproduce like crazy) and eggs (obvious connection). Personally, I don’t like being scared and I resist scary movies, but I also don’t think I have anything to fear from the spooky forces traditionally associated with Hallowe’en, because I claim the promise paraphrased by Martin Luther in his great hymn: “The prince of darkness grim, / We tremble not for him . . . / For lo, his doom is sure / One little Word shall fell him.” That Word, of course, is Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless, I prefer All Saints Day, November 1, when we remember all the faithful believers who have died, the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1). Among them, my grandfather, Dr. Victor C. Rambo, M.D. My grandfather Rambo was an ophthalmologist in India for over fifty years, helped start one hospital and taught in two Indian medical schools. He developed new ways to bring sight to people with impaired vision in rural areas and removed thousands of cataracts. A man of seemingly unending faith, he never hesitated to pray or talk about Jesus with anyone, anytime. He would also tell anyone and everyone about the need for missionaries. Only one of his five children became a full-time medical missionary—my father—but one of my uncles became a doctor, an aunt is a nurse, and my other uncle and aunt became teachers of science and mathematics. All are active Christians. My grandparents’ influence has carried on to the next generation as well—one of their granddaughters and her husband are both medical missionaries in Rwanda.
19.October.2006
Medieval in Mississippi
I’ve been catching up all week since I got back from the 32nd annual Southeastern Medieval Association (SEMA) conference at the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”). SEMA has been around since 1975, and I’ve been a member on and off since I was in graduate school, attending pretty regularly since 1997. Usually I present a paper, and often I help lead a workshop on reading Chaucer’s Middle English aloud. SEMA is a great opportunity to network with friends and colleagues in my field from other universities, and to learn about new ideas in medieval literature.
This year’s conference was especially packed with interesting speakers and presentations. Giles Constable of the Institute for Advanced Study talked about the Fourth Crusade—which was interesting, because one of my medieval lit. students had recently given a presentation on the crusades, so I got a new perspective on those controversial military campaigns from Professor Constable. Roberta Frank of Yale discussed “The Hip Factor in Anglo-Saxon England, and was very witty—popular culture existed even in the Old English period. I learned about the manuscript history of Malory’s Morte Darthure from Baylor University’s D. Thomas Hanks (no relation—I’m pretty sure); and got all the latest theories on medieval drama and performance—just in time for my medieval literature class. What a relief to learn that the text I happened to choose for medieval plays Noah’s Flood and Mankind is the one the experts consider most reliable.
I always learn something at a conference that I can bring back to the classroom, but this year’s SEMA was richer than most.I also enjoyed the beautiful campus of the University of Mississippi and downtown square of the town of Oxford, MS. As we were being driven from the airport to our hotel, the shuttle driver pointed out an enormous yellow-and-white house on a hilltop: “That’s John Grisham’s house.” Of course, Grisham now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia—too many total strangers kept turning up on his doorstep in Oxford. Ah, the price of fame!
8.October.2006
Why Popular Culture Matters
What a busy week! Between classes and grading papers, I finished writing a paper to present at the Popular Culture Association in the South conference in Savannah, Georgia this weekend. As I’ve mentioned before, I am interested in popular culture, which pretty much means arts and other forms of entertainment and life patterns (culture) with which ordinary people occupy themselves—movies, TV, pop music of all kinds, crafts, ordinary architecture, games, sports, comic books, all kinds of popular novels. Some people wonder why I’m interested in this stuff, since my “official” PhD is in medieval literature and I can read Anglo-Saxon and Middle English, not to mention Shakespeare. But of course, that’s the answer—as some other professors I talked with at the PCAS conference agreed—what were Shakespeare’s plays in their time if not “popular culture”? Everyone went to the Globe Theater, not just Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers! The poorest folk could get in as “groundlings”—standing-room—for next-to-nothing and expect to be well and truly entertained with a mix of drama, tragedy, and/or comedy.
So how do we know what among today’s movies or TV will be remembered tomorrow? I surely hope that people will still be reading Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in 2506, but I also hope they’ll still be watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Citizen Kane in the latest electronic video format.
And speaking of movies—All the President’s Men looks great, but devastates the point of Robert Penn Warren’s novel, so do read the book instead, or first.
29.September.2006
Mostly About Literature to Film
This week, I graded my composition students’ first writing assignment and they started working on the second writing assignment. Meanwhile, the Medieval Literature class is beginning to read Middle English. I watched a new film version of Beowulf on DVD, directed by Sturla Gunnarson, called Beowulf and Grendel. The definitive Beowulf movie has yet to be made, is my verdict.
Tonight--Friday--I’ll join the Mabel Powell English Club “dinner and a movie” outing. We’re going to see All the King’s Men, based on the classic novel by Robert Penn Warren. The movie has gotten mixed reviews, so far, but I definitely recommend the novel. The opening few pages alone are worth the price of admission...and so is the end, not to mention everything in between. It's about politics, fate, corruption, love, history, and hope. I doubt the film will match the novel (few films do), but I expect we’ll have a good time talking about it.
This Sunday afternoon, my church holds the annual blessing of the animals, in honor of St. Francis, who was a big fan of God's creation and creatures. Our pastor notes that animals are “already blessed”--it’s just fun to get together and share. We’re taking one of our two cats for a little extra prayer, though-he’s the troublemaker.
21.September.2006
Inroduction
About a month into my eighth year teaching English at Campbell University. Before, I taught for nine years at Biola University in the Los Angeles area--it was great, except that I’m not a California girl. I love North Carolina, and especially the quiet location of Campbell--where we have "rush minutes" instead of rush hour.
Medieval literature is my special area--Beowulf, Chaucer, King Arthur--but like most Campbell profs, I teach courses at all levels: composition and literature surveys, in addition to upper level courses for English majors.
My other teaching/research interest is popular culture--I think I'll talk more about that next time.
I've lived in many different places, because my parents were missionaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), and their parents were missionaries in India. All things considered, however, I think I've spent more time in North Carolina than anywhere else, which is fine with me. My husband and I have two cats and a boatload of nieces and nephews. Our two eldest nephews started college this year--one at Clemson, the other at the US Naval Academy (Annapolis). We're very proud of them, even though they didn't choose Campbell!
I had a hard time writing this first post—just trying to figure out what to say. Now you know that I can sympathize with students when they tell me they have a hard time getting started with their papers!
