Transcript of an interview with Kam Louie at National Taiwan University

I came across this transcript of an interview with Kam Louie. It's 99 pages long (!), so I haven't finished it yet, but it's quite interesting. 

Everything I know about academic writing I learned from my six-year-old

My six-year-old likes to talk about dinosaurs. Any conversation you try to have with him always ends up turning to dinosaurs. The other night, he was talking to his grandmother, who asked him how he liked the book she had sent him. "I like it! I like it a lot! Small Inventions that Changed the World!" (He said the title very dramatically.) But then, "The Paraceratherium was a giant rhino that walked the earth over 30 million years ago…” As you can imagine, it’s not easy to have a conversation with him, unless you want to listen to him lecture you on the prehistoric world (Paraceratherium was technically not a dinosaur, he reminds me).

I am supposed to talk to a class of first-year English majors in a couple of days about my research and teaching, but I've got this on my mind instead. I'm thinking about how how much watching my kindergartner has taught me about scholarly writing. Here are a couple of points that come to mind:

• The importance of taking part in a conversation. Kenneth Burke's metaphor of entering the parlor is popular among writing teachers (I have it in my syllabus, in fact). The example above demonstrates the risks of not listening for a while until "you have caught the tenor of the argument." Typically, upon waking up, his first words to me will be something like "Baba, 65 million years ago, a giant asteroid collided with the earth near Mexico, and the dinosaurs all died." (Before you write to correct that, be aware that I am simplifying what he says to me--he's more complex and nuanced.) My point is that like my son, I need to learn good academic writing "manners"--instead of jumping right in with my own contribution, I need to think about how what I want to say relates to what people are currently talking about. 
• The importance of good titles. I hate my titles, but my son doesn't seem to have any trouble with putting out short, provocative titles. Here are a couple (he also has a cool pen name: Mr P.):

• The importance of branching out into other areas of inquiry. While he's currently thinking a lot about dinosaurs, you can see from the two titles that my son doesn't only write about prehistoric life. He has also found out, too, that learning about geology is important to understanding dinosaurs.
• The importance of not being too much of a perfectionist. My son just plows on through mistakes, as you can see from the title of "Human Destroys the World!" I try to remind myself that nothing I write is going to be the "final word" on the topic, so I shouldn't put so much stress on it being "perfect" or on responding to all of the critical voices in my head in that one paper. Save something for future work or responses to criticism. Just put it out into the world! And don't let spelling get in the way.
• The importance of writing every day. Right now he's asking me for paper, so I'd better stop this and get him some.

"Hey, guys! Wait up for me!"

 

Recorded from my kitchen window Sunday, Feb. 7

Another book in the former native speaker's library

I don't have time these days to read or write anything not related to teaching, but I can still buy books! My latest purchase is an English translation Ye Shitao's A History of Taiwan Literature by Christopher Lupke. It has a great cover, a 1927 street scene by Ran In-ting (藍蔭鼎), an important Taiwanese watercolor artist. (Here's a short video in Mandarin about Ran.)

I first heard about this translation from an interview with Lupke on the New Books Network. I liked the interview, especially for the chance to hear about Lupke's experiences in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and about his process of doing the translation. (It took him about 10 years!) 

I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to read it, but I think I'll have to dip into it as I work on a writing project on a somewhat related topic. The book's a bit expensive, so hopefully I'll get reimbursed for it!