These days we're supposed to practice social distancing, and I for one have been taking this pretty seriously, having begun my intensive social-distancing efforts on March 11 when our face-to-face classes were obliged to go remote. Since each person's situation and temperament is different, the social distancing experience varies.
For me, as a not all that extroverted person (call me an ambivert) with a housemate and pets, staying home most of the time is pretty much normal behavior. Sure, I like to travel, but I attended two conferences in the past month (possibly unwisely, but what's done is done). Sure, I like to see my friends, but most of them live in other states and countries anyway (and while I like my co-workers and neighbors, it's not as though I constantly socialize with them).
Staying six feet away from people in public places has been trickier. I'm happy to do it when possible, but it's not easy to keep a six-foot distance at the cash register, and other people in stores often don't have a good grip on the six-foot idea. A few days ago I took my housemate to a craft store that was going out of business (housemate needed to get mat board and frames, or so we thought at the time), and it was crawling with families who seemed to think this was a good place to spend the afternoon or something. I was eager to leave, although happy to get quite a few knitting needles and some embroidery floss for a huge discount (maybe someday I'll get back to knitting and embroidering, like during this pandemic or else during my retirement).
A lot of people are eager to support local businesses that will suffer. So am I, but within reason. I was certainly not out at the pub on the last night it was open, despite the fact that I am a charter member. Nor was I about to hang out at the bakery-cafe around the corner when I dropped by last Friday to pick up coffee and a scone as a gesture of support (could not believe how many people were just sitting there breathing on one another in close proximity). I picked up a coffee the other day at the cat-adoption cafe in my neighborhood, again purely to support them, since I do have coffee and half-and-half at home for now. I'm guessing that so long as restaurants are allowed to do take-out here, I'll get the occasional meal to go to help them stay afloat.
Speaking of food, I began gradually stocking up several weeks ago, because it's always good to be prepared for disaster anyway, and I didn't want to be out there during panic-buying. Now when I go to the grocery store, I can just run in and grab some fresh produce and one or two other things and get out. And I'm pleased to say that our local Kroger rationed items like toilet paper, so I didn't have any trouble getting a fairly big (not enormous) package last week. I'd still like to get a second thermometer (one for each human) but the drugstore was out last I checked. At least we have one in the house and when I took my temperature, it said 97 degrees. Apparently I don't have a fever and maybe I'm a reptile.
Friday, March 20, 2020
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Closing Down Campus for Safety
We're in our first week of "remote" instruction here and the situation continues to develop. Initially, our university library, computer labs, studios, and offices remained open. But then the library closed (I know our library staff breathed a sigh of relief!), and now pretty much everything on campus is closing as far as I can tell. At any rate, the Art Office, studios, labs...
As for teaching, well, it isn't exactly going all that smoothly for many of us. Those who wanted to put lectures online or even hold synchronous online discussions are reporting some problems. If nothing else, lots of students don't have very reliable internet access or are trying to take care of their kids or elderly parents.
So far, I've tried giving assignments that are fairly open-ended, but I'm having trouble with students (even my one MA student from another department) not reading the instructions very well. When the instructions say that I've put a list of suggested films on our course site, I don't want to have people emailing asking if I can give them a list (but they've done so). When the instructions say to post info about museum web sites on Discussion Board and discuss, I don't want people emailing me or the whole class with what they've found (but they've done so). When I say to watch as many films as they can, I don't want to be asked "how many do you want us to watch?" (but they've done so).
I get that they are feeling discombobulated and stressed out, and I know I don't always pick up key information when I read either. It's just that each unnecessary email of that kind takes time to deal with, makes me worry that a whole lot more are about to arrive, and takes my focus away from grading take-home exams, commenting on actual Discussion Board posts, and planning how to go forward.
As for teaching, well, it isn't exactly going all that smoothly for many of us. Those who wanted to put lectures online or even hold synchronous online discussions are reporting some problems. If nothing else, lots of students don't have very reliable internet access or are trying to take care of their kids or elderly parents.
So far, I've tried giving assignments that are fairly open-ended, but I'm having trouble with students (even my one MA student from another department) not reading the instructions very well. When the instructions say that I've put a list of suggested films on our course site, I don't want to have people emailing asking if I can give them a list (but they've done so). When the instructions say to post info about museum web sites on Discussion Board and discuss, I don't want people emailing me or the whole class with what they've found (but they've done so). When I say to watch as many films as they can, I don't want to be asked "how many do you want us to watch?" (but they've done so).
I get that they are feeling discombobulated and stressed out, and I know I don't always pick up key information when I read either. It's just that each unnecessary email of that kind takes time to deal with, makes me worry that a whole lot more are about to arrive, and takes my focus away from grading take-home exams, commenting on actual Discussion Board posts, and planning how to go forward.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
AWP, Small-Scale
During my Spring Break, I went down to San Antonio for the annual AWP conference. Actually, I went down early in order to do a little bit of research on a great-grandfather who went down there in the 1890s and changed his name, but that's a whole other story!
The AWP conference is normally a huge event. Both CAA and ASEEES, which I attend every year as an art historian specializing in Czech Modernism, are very large, but AWP is gigantic, as in addition to writing professors and their MFA students, it also attracts lots of undergraduates and writers not affiliated with universities (or who, like me, work in a different department), plus loads of people who work at presses and literary journals.
This year was different.
Had AWP been scheduled for just two weeks later, it would almost certainly have been cancelled to prevent spread of coronavirus. However, it fell in that weird moment when the virus was spreading and people were getting worried, but the US had not really faced the problem. (No, the US certainly has still not really faced the problem, but at least more people, especially state and local governments, are waking up to it.) Consequently, the AWP conference was not cancelled, but the organizers recognized that many people would not feel safe attending, and let everyone know that that was okay. "If you... have requested to defer your registration to #AWP21 or a refund for #AWP20, please note that we will begin to process refunds on March 10."
Rightly or wrongly, I was among those who went ahead and traveled. I planned to be as careful as possible, although I knew that that might not fully protect me. Still, I wore gloves most of the time (wearing leather gloves in weather approaching 80 degrees was a little strange, but...), washed my hands frequently in the manner recommended, mostly managed to avoid touching people, etc. We'll see. At that time, few cases had been reported in the US, and while I was sure there were more than reported, back then it seemed plausible that the virus was not widely infecting the community.
Attendance was light, and many exhibitor booths were empty. Although AWP kept updating the panel cancellations, not every cancelled panel alerted AWP that no one would attend. I managed to attend a few panels on book promotion and/or what the first year of your first book can be like; I also went to one or two on craft (not particularly impressive ones, I'm afraid); and a panel of writers who had used family stories (particularly about immigrants) in their fiction. This last, and the promotion panels, were very good.
I got to see a couple of Bay Area friends, and had a surprising and delightful reunion with a writer friend with whom I'd been out of touch for about thirty years. As usual at AWP, I talked to quite a few editors and other staff people at various presses and journals. I bought more books by André Alexis at the Coach House booth, where I also got other promising Canadian fiction. Indeed, I bought as many books as I thought I could pack in my luggage, like Carmen Boullosa's The Book of Anna and Camilla Grudova's The Doll's Alphabet from Coffee House Press, Joao Gilberto Noll's Atlantic Hotel from Two Lines Press, Micheline Aharonian Marcom's The Brick House from Awst Press, Joanna Pearson's Every Human Love from Acre Press, Waubgeshig Rice's Moon of the Crusted Snow from ECW Press, Chris Geier's Silt directly from the author (Alternating Current Press), and Christina Chiu's Beauty directly from the author (SfWP). Naturally there were many more books from many other presses that I was also tempted to buy!
Now to stay home and read and write.
The AWP conference is normally a huge event. Both CAA and ASEEES, which I attend every year as an art historian specializing in Czech Modernism, are very large, but AWP is gigantic, as in addition to writing professors and their MFA students, it also attracts lots of undergraduates and writers not affiliated with universities (or who, like me, work in a different department), plus loads of people who work at presses and literary journals.
This year was different.
Had AWP been scheduled for just two weeks later, it would almost certainly have been cancelled to prevent spread of coronavirus. However, it fell in that weird moment when the virus was spreading and people were getting worried, but the US had not really faced the problem. (No, the US certainly has still not really faced the problem, but at least more people, especially state and local governments, are waking up to it.) Consequently, the AWP conference was not cancelled, but the organizers recognized that many people would not feel safe attending, and let everyone know that that was okay. "If you... have requested to defer your registration to #AWP21 or a refund for #AWP20, please note that we will begin to process refunds on March 10."
Rightly or wrongly, I was among those who went ahead and traveled. I planned to be as careful as possible, although I knew that that might not fully protect me. Still, I wore gloves most of the time (wearing leather gloves in weather approaching 80 degrees was a little strange, but...), washed my hands frequently in the manner recommended, mostly managed to avoid touching people, etc. We'll see. At that time, few cases had been reported in the US, and while I was sure there were more than reported, back then it seemed plausible that the virus was not widely infecting the community.
Attendance was light, and many exhibitor booths were empty. Although AWP kept updating the panel cancellations, not every cancelled panel alerted AWP that no one would attend. I managed to attend a few panels on book promotion and/or what the first year of your first book can be like; I also went to one or two on craft (not particularly impressive ones, I'm afraid); and a panel of writers who had used family stories (particularly about immigrants) in their fiction. This last, and the promotion panels, were very good.
I got to see a couple of Bay Area friends, and had a surprising and delightful reunion with a writer friend with whom I'd been out of touch for about thirty years. As usual at AWP, I talked to quite a few editors and other staff people at various presses and journals. I bought more books by André Alexis at the Coach House booth, where I also got other promising Canadian fiction. Indeed, I bought as many books as I thought I could pack in my luggage, like Carmen Boullosa's The Book of Anna and Camilla Grudova's The Doll's Alphabet from Coffee House Press, Joao Gilberto Noll's Atlantic Hotel from Two Lines Press, Micheline Aharonian Marcom's The Brick House from Awst Press, Joanna Pearson's Every Human Love from Acre Press, Waubgeshig Rice's Moon of the Crusted Snow from ECW Press, Chris Geier's Silt directly from the author (Alternating Current Press), and Christina Chiu's Beauty directly from the author (SfWP). Naturally there were many more books from many other presses that I was also tempted to buy!
Now to stay home and read and write.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Face-to-Face Classes Go "Remote"
Last Tuesday, my colleague in Art History and I were making final plans about order of program for the Riess Undergraduate Art History Colloquium, which we were scheduled to host on March 28. The Riess is an annual regional opportunity for art history students (not necessarily majors) to present their work and receive feedback from a small and friendly audience, and we were excited that we'd be hosting the event for the first time.
Alas, it was not to be. No sooner had we gone home to feed our pets before meeting again for a more relaxed supper, than we received word that face-to-face courses would be going "remote" for the rest of March due to the spreading coronavirus pandemic and that events would need to be postponed or cancelled. By the end of the week, the "remote" instruction had been expanded to the remainder of the semester. It's possible we may be able to postpone the Riess until fall, but many of the students may have graduated by then and would not be available.
My university, of course, is by no means the only or even the first in the US to make this move. A growing number of colleges and universities are shifting to "remote," and soon I heard that the annual Czech and Slovak Workshop, which my alma mater the University of Pittsburgh was about to host for the first time, was also not going to occur as scheduled. Like Riess, the Workshop is all about discussion of the participants' research, except that the Workshop has historically been for advanced graduate students and early career scholars with a sprinkling of established scholars.
But events aside, what does "remote" instruction mean? Most faculty have never taught online courses and are not prepared to do so; creating an online course involves a whole lot of work above and beyond that involved in most face-to-face courses.
Expectations for "remote" instruction will vary from school to school, department to department, and course to course. My university has, fortunately, made clear that it need not mean creating the kind of online course that one might do in the normal course of things. After all, students in face-to-face courses did not sign up expecting to have an online education. Not all students have internet at home. Not all students own a computer. (These facts may amaze you, but they are facts, not fake news.) So, expecting everyone to have constant access, and bandwidth for, synchronous lectures and discussion, or what-have-you, is not realistic or fair to less-advantaged students (which means many of my own students). Sure, most students these days do have a smartphone, but I sure would not like to have to expect them to do large amounts of coursework on their phones.
I don't know what my colleagues in studio are doing beyond allowing students to work at home and in our studios (which remain open for now), but we are being allowed a good deal of latitude in figuring out alternate assignments. For now, I've asked my students to watch as many art-related films as they can and write discussion posts about them. This naturally requires some internet access, but I'm not assigning specific films. Our library is still open and so some films can be watched on VHS or DVD. Any art-related films are acceptable (although for each class I've provided a list of options pertinent to the course--good thing I'm not teaching Czech Modernism this semester!), they just need to have enough internet access to discuss what they've seen. Meanwhile, I have an exam to redo to be take-home, a paper assignment to be rewritten since the museum is closed, and so on.
Hoping the pandemic is soon over, but not feeling too optimistic about that for now.
Alas, it was not to be. No sooner had we gone home to feed our pets before meeting again for a more relaxed supper, than we received word that face-to-face courses would be going "remote" for the rest of March due to the spreading coronavirus pandemic and that events would need to be postponed or cancelled. By the end of the week, the "remote" instruction had been expanded to the remainder of the semester. It's possible we may be able to postpone the Riess until fall, but many of the students may have graduated by then and would not be available.
My university, of course, is by no means the only or even the first in the US to make this move. A growing number of colleges and universities are shifting to "remote," and soon I heard that the annual Czech and Slovak Workshop, which my alma mater the University of Pittsburgh was about to host for the first time, was also not going to occur as scheduled. Like Riess, the Workshop is all about discussion of the participants' research, except that the Workshop has historically been for advanced graduate students and early career scholars with a sprinkling of established scholars.
But events aside, what does "remote" instruction mean? Most faculty have never taught online courses and are not prepared to do so; creating an online course involves a whole lot of work above and beyond that involved in most face-to-face courses.
Expectations for "remote" instruction will vary from school to school, department to department, and course to course. My university has, fortunately, made clear that it need not mean creating the kind of online course that one might do in the normal course of things. After all, students in face-to-face courses did not sign up expecting to have an online education. Not all students have internet at home. Not all students own a computer. (These facts may amaze you, but they are facts, not fake news.) So, expecting everyone to have constant access, and bandwidth for, synchronous lectures and discussion, or what-have-you, is not realistic or fair to less-advantaged students (which means many of my own students). Sure, most students these days do have a smartphone, but I sure would not like to have to expect them to do large amounts of coursework on their phones.
I don't know what my colleagues in studio are doing beyond allowing students to work at home and in our studios (which remain open for now), but we are being allowed a good deal of latitude in figuring out alternate assignments. For now, I've asked my students to watch as many art-related films as they can and write discussion posts about them. This naturally requires some internet access, but I'm not assigning specific films. Our library is still open and so some films can be watched on VHS or DVD. Any art-related films are acceptable (although for each class I've provided a list of options pertinent to the course--good thing I'm not teaching Czech Modernism this semester!), they just need to have enough internet access to discuss what they've seen. Meanwhile, I have an exam to redo to be take-home, a paper assignment to be rewritten since the museum is closed, and so on.
Hoping the pandemic is soon over, but not feeling too optimistic about that for now.
Monday, March 16, 2020
Upcoming Toyen Exhibition!
Here's a bit more good news that I didn't get around to posting earlier. Back in November, when I served as discussant on a panel of papers about Toyen at the annual ASEEES conference, Anna Pravdová revealed that the National Gallery in Prague is preparing a major Toyen show for 2021 that will travel to France and Germany. Magnetic Woman will have just come out, so it should be possible to stock copies in the museum stores.
And, further exciting news... last month when I was in Chicago for the annual CAA conference, staff from the Art Institute of Chicago (which, by the way, will be closed March 14-27 for safety) told me that they had just arranged to bring the show to Chicago!
During my visit to Chicago I not only got to catch up with various friends and colleagues, but also saw the Art Institute's exhibition on Bauhaus weaving just before it closed.
And, further exciting news... last month when I was in Chicago for the annual CAA conference, staff from the Art Institute of Chicago (which, by the way, will be closed March 14-27 for safety) told me that they had just arranged to bring the show to Chicago!
During my visit to Chicago I not only got to catch up with various friends and colleagues, but also saw the Art Institute's exhibition on Bauhaus weaving just before it closed.
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Magnetic Woman has been Copyedited!
The hardest time to blog seems to be when there's actually a lot to say--during a conference, during grading, during periods of concentrated work on projects. At times like that, my mind is full of great ideas for blog posts, which then don't get written because doing a good blog post involves (or so it seems) more time than just writing a similar amount of text on something else. There are hyperlinks to include, tags to choose, and a surprising amount of proofreading. That said, failure to write blog posts is not due solely to being busy, any more than failing to enter books I've read into Goodreads. Sometimes I just don't get around to it.
Things have, however, been a bit intense of late, for both good and bad reasons. So I'll try to do a set of separate posts that can be rolled out gradually. I always like to get more than one post ready, anyway!
This one focuses on some good news, which we can all enjoy in this time of coronavirus pandemic. Yes, GOOD NEWS! Production on Magnetic Woman is picking up speed! Awhile back I sent in my edits on material for catalog copy, and last week I turned in my edits on the copyedited text. For authors, this is a very exciting time.
For those who aren't too familiar with the process of book publishing, the copyeditor's job involves things like making sure everything is spelled correctly and consistently (I am pretty good at spelling, but the copyeditor rightly pointed out that we can't have both Shklovsky and Shklovskij for the same person). And do all of the sentences make sense? Has the author said anything that might be unintentionally offensive (intentionally offensive is another matter, although still questionable)? Has the author capitalized words that the press doesn't? Has the author failed to include page numbers on citations? Etc. If this sounds like a proofreader's job, well, it's their job too, but the proofreader comes later, to catch whatever the copyeditor and author missed.
Copyediting comes in light, medium, and heavy forms, depending on both the needs of the press and how well the author writes. I would describe the copyedits on my book as light (I've been a copyeditor myself, and my sibling also went over the manuscript more than once before I turned it in), but there were still a fair number of queries for me to answer. Most, luckily, were easy. And as for Shklovsky vs Shklovskij, I said that the press was welcome to use whichever style of Russian transliteration they prefer, because this is an area where I have no expertise. The task that took me the longest involved the captions for the many figures. I had supplied standard identifications for my images, but the press also wanted me to write additional text. This took me longer than I expected, because in many cases I felt the chapter said all that the reader needed to know about a given image. In those cases I tried to come up with something that didn't sound too repetitive or lame, possibly unsuccessfully. More pleasantly, in some cases I was able to provide some added value by saying something about the caricaturist (I'm using quite a few caricatures of Czech cultural figures) or about the magazine in which the image had originally appeared.
The manuscript, with my fixes, now goes back to the copyeditor to finalize the changes.
Things have, however, been a bit intense of late, for both good and bad reasons. So I'll try to do a set of separate posts that can be rolled out gradually. I always like to get more than one post ready, anyway!
This one focuses on some good news, which we can all enjoy in this time of coronavirus pandemic. Yes, GOOD NEWS! Production on Magnetic Woman is picking up speed! Awhile back I sent in my edits on material for catalog copy, and last week I turned in my edits on the copyedited text. For authors, this is a very exciting time.
For those who aren't too familiar with the process of book publishing, the copyeditor's job involves things like making sure everything is spelled correctly and consistently (I am pretty good at spelling, but the copyeditor rightly pointed out that we can't have both Shklovsky and Shklovskij for the same person). And do all of the sentences make sense? Has the author said anything that might be unintentionally offensive (intentionally offensive is another matter, although still questionable)? Has the author capitalized words that the press doesn't? Has the author failed to include page numbers on citations? Etc. If this sounds like a proofreader's job, well, it's their job too, but the proofreader comes later, to catch whatever the copyeditor and author missed.
Copyediting comes in light, medium, and heavy forms, depending on both the needs of the press and how well the author writes. I would describe the copyedits on my book as light (I've been a copyeditor myself, and my sibling also went over the manuscript more than once before I turned it in), but there were still a fair number of queries for me to answer. Most, luckily, were easy. And as for Shklovsky vs Shklovskij, I said that the press was welcome to use whichever style of Russian transliteration they prefer, because this is an area where I have no expertise. The task that took me the longest involved the captions for the many figures. I had supplied standard identifications for my images, but the press also wanted me to write additional text. This took me longer than I expected, because in many cases I felt the chapter said all that the reader needed to know about a given image. In those cases I tried to come up with something that didn't sound too repetitive or lame, possibly unsuccessfully. More pleasantly, in some cases I was able to provide some added value by saying something about the caricaturist (I'm using quite a few caricatures of Czech cultural figures) or about the magazine in which the image had originally appeared.
The manuscript, with my fixes, now goes back to the copyeditor to finalize the changes.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Moving on from the HGSCEA board
For six years, I've served as an at-large board member of the Historians of German, Scandinavian, and Central European Art. We sponsor an annual panel at College Art Association, throw a nice dinner there for our members, and try to come up with other useful ways of supporting our membership (networking, exhibitions, an article prize for emerging scholars, etc.). It's been a good six years, but as I was recently elected president of the Czechoslovak Studies Association, I need to move on to focusing on that organization's needs.
At this year's HGSCEA meeting, we welcomed several new board members and are pleased to have a mix of new and continuing board members. It looks like the organization is going to have dynamic leadership. And, as a very pleasant surprise, at the annual dinner the outgoing board members all received lovely packages of chocolate from Vosges Chocolates! (I was going to post a photo of the chocolate box, but Google is not cooperating on getting the photo from my phone.)
At this year's HGSCEA meeting, we welcomed several new board members and are pleased to have a mix of new and continuing board members. It looks like the organization is going to have dynamic leadership. And, as a very pleasant surprise, at the annual dinner the outgoing board members all received lovely packages of chocolate from Vosges Chocolates! (I was going to post a photo of the chocolate box, but Google is not cooperating on getting the photo from my phone.)
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