Naming Taiwan's ruling party

Just something I noticed--don't know if anyone else did: during his visit to China, Wu Po-hsiung used the full name of the KMT: 中國國民黨 (Chinese [or "China"] Nationalist Party) a lot. Every time I saw a clip of him talking, "中國國民黨" (rather than simply "國民黨") would come out of his mouth. I suppose part of the reason for this would be that his immediate audience, the CCP officials he was meeting with, would appreciate Wu's embrace of the 中國 in the name of the island's ruling party after the years of "去中國化" that we were supposedly experiencing here and that probably had the CCP folks there wringing their hands (along with the KMT folks here).

It's interesting, though, to think about Wu's embrace of "中國國民黨" in light of the attempts to "localize" the KMT during the election--Ma's "long stays" and frequent use of Taiwanese, and the de-emphasis on the "中國" part of the party's name (though not to the point of changing its official name). The other interesting thing to think about will be what the KMT will call itself locally from here on out--will "中國" be used more, say, on local election posters, banners, etc.?

Naming Taiwan's leader

The Foreigner in Formosa comments on the KMT Chairman Wu Po-hsiung's use of "Mr. Ma" (instead of "President Ma") during his time in China.

Question for the KMT: If YOU feel no particular need to call Ma Ying-jeou, "President," why should any of his political opponents back home feel obligated to do so?

I personally have decided just to refer to him as 馬特首--might as well get used to the sound of it...

CFP: Rhetorical Citizenship conference in Denmark

via

Call for Papers - Call for Participation International Conference on

"Rhetorical Citizenship and Public Deliberation"

October 9-10, 2008
University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen, DENMARK

The conference is presented by the researchers' network "Rhetorical Citizenship: Perspectives on Deliberative Democracy", based at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen. The conference will open at 9:00 AM on October 9 and close at 5:00 PM on October 10. The registration desk is open from 8:30 am. both days. Participants may sign in, pick up conference materials, etc. at this time.

The conference theme frames explorations into:

• how rhetorical citizenship can manifest itself
• what common and/or local traits it might have
• what societal interests are vested in regarding citizenship as a rhetorical phenomenon.

The conference welcomes scholars from a broad spectrum of academic fields, including Communication, Rhetoric, Political Science, and Philosophy, as well as educators, journalists, politicians, activists in political and grassroots movements, etc.

Keynote Speakers
The following Keynote Speakers will be featured:

Professor John Dryzek:
REPRESENTING DISCOURSES
Contemporary democracy is mostly representative democracy. Deliberative democracy highlights communication rather than aggregation of the preferences of individuals. Especially in contexts where a well-defined demos cannot be identified, it may make sense to think in terms of the representation of discourses rather than persons. We might then think about desirable characteristics of discursive representatives, and the circumstances under which they might meet in a 'chamber of discourses'.

Professor John Dryzek (Australian National University) is the author of Deliberative Democracy and Beyond, Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy, and Political Science, Democracy in Capitalist Times: Ideals, Limits, and Struggles, The Politics of the Earth, and several other works.

Professor Rosa A. Eberly:
"QUANTUM PARLIAMENTS": DISCIPLINARITY, PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP, AND COMMON GOODS

More than two millennia after Plato put the -ic in rhetoric -- and more than a century after hair-splitting disciplinarity began to erode the scholarly pursuit of common questions -- scholars from across the arts and sciences (even physicists!) are bringing their "occupational psychoses" to the shared and perduring problems of democracy. What might scholars do to imagine our different roles -- researchers, teachers, citizens -- as complementary rather than antagonistic? I will discuss with the audience several historical and contemporary cases of how disciplinary differences discouraged and enabled the useful pursuit of common questions in the context of public scholarship.

Professor Rosa A. Eberly (Penn State University, formerly University of Texas, Austin) is a Fellow of Penn State's Laboratory for Public Scholarship and Democracy and is author of Citizen Critics: Literary Public Spheres, The Elements of Reasoning and many studies on rhetoric and civic engagement, and public scholarship and has published in distinguished journals such as Rhetoric and Public Affairs and Rhetoric Review, and New Directions for Teaching and Learning.

Professor John M. Murphy:
CULTIVATING CITIZENSHIP: THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RHETORIC In recent years, a variety of thinkers, from Robert Putnam to Danielle Allen, have identified individualism and distrust as key obstacles to a vigorous practice of citizenship. They have also generally focused on public rhetoric as a problem and unfavorably compared the competitive norms implicit within political discourse to the cooperative norms they see in other discursive practices. Rather than giving up on public rhetoric, I suggest we explore some exemplary discursive practices that may light the way toward a more vibrant citizenry. I'll illustrate these concepts with examples drawn from John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.

Professor John M. Murphy (University of Illinois, formerly University of Georgia) is the author of numerous studies of American political rhetoric in leading journals such as Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and Quarterly Journal of Speech.

Professor Georgia Warnke: Title to be announced.
Professor Warnke (University of California, Riverside) is the author of Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition, and Reason, Justice and Interpretation, Legitimate Differences: Interpretation in the Abortion Controversy and Other Public Debates, and After Identity: Rethinking Race, Sex and Gender.

Participation and papers
All those interested in the conference themes are invited, whether they wish to present papers or not. Papers discussing aspects of rhetorical citizenship - particularly with regard to questions raised by ideals about democratic debate and its many manifestations - are invited. Topics may include practical, ideological and ethical perspectives on public discourse. Particular questions explored might be:

• What should we expect from public debate?
• Can meaningful norms of public conversation be formulated, and how might such norms be nurtured?
• What is "reasonable disagreement" and how can it be handled constructively?
• How might the notion "rhetorical agency" contribute to our thinking about and critique of public deliberation?
• What characterizes a constructive speaking position and how might it be obtained?

Papers should be given in English. Time slots for papers will be 45 minutes, including at least 10 minutes for questions and debate.

If you wish to participate, send an email to Rhetoricalcitizenship@hum.ku.dk by June 1, 2008. (You may use the reply email function if applicable.) Those wishing to present papers should include a title and an abstract of no more than 200 words. Within a short time, you will then receive an email giving further information on registration, payment, etc., and directing you to the conference website.

Notification on acceptance of papers will be sent out by email by June 15, 2008.

Registration and fees:
Registration must be sent by email to Rhetoricalcitizenship@hum.ku.dk
Fees for registration before July 1, 2008:
For academic faculty: DDK 500,00
For students and non-academic participants: DDK 350,00

Fees for registration later than July 1, 2008:
For academic faculty: DDK 600,00
For students and non-academic participants: DDK 450,00

Fees include conference participation, lunches, and coffee/tea/refreshments during conference hours, and a conference dinner (excl. beverages).

Instructions regarding payment will be posted on the conference website as soon as possible and sent by email to individuals who have submitted an abstract.

Final registration deadline will be September 15, 2008.

Conference Publication
The organizers intend to publish a volume containing selected conference papers. Participants interested in submitting their paper for consideration are invited to indicate this during the conference by submitting a brief statement containing subject, title and contact information. Final versions of papers must be submitted by November 15, 2008. All submissions for the conference volume will be peer reviewed.

Conference Website
There will be a conference website continually updated with relevant information, such as a full conference schedule, advice on travel, lodging, meals, etc. A website for the conference is under construction and will shortly be accessible at this address: http://rhetoricalcitizenship.mef.ku.dk/conference

As organizers of the conference, we sincerely hope that you will choose to attend.

With our best wishes,

The Conference Committee:

Lisa Storm Villadsen Christian Kock
Associate Professor of Rhetoric Professor of Rhetoric
University of Copenhagen, University of Copenhagen

Hans V. Hansen Ove Korsgaard
Professor of Philosophy Professor, The Danish University School of Education
University of Windsor, Canada University of Aarhus

Kjell Lars Berge
Professor, Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies
University of Oslo

Kasper Møller Hansen
Associate Professor of General and Comparative Political Science Dept. of Political Science
University of Copenhagen

The Rev. B.F. Tefft on Daniel Webster's oratory

While working on a syllabus for an MOE-required elective called "Introduction to English Rhetoric" (that may not ever actually be taught, since although we're required to offer it students aren't required to take it), I came across the following comments on Daniel Webster's oratory in the preface to a book of Webster's selected speeches. (I imagine the previous sentence will have some of my readers--if I have any readers--wondering why anyone would ask me to write a syllabus for a course on rhetoric, but anyway...)

Here it is for my future reference:

It is quite evident that Mr. Webster matured rather slowly; that his efforts made before the age of fifty were his most popular because the most impassioned efforts; but that his productions dated beyond the age of fifty, though less fiery, are generally more indicative of his unsurpassed abilities as a man of deep, penetrating, far-reaching, and comprehensive mind. His mind, indeed, seemed to grow clearer as he advanced in years; and the very latest speeches, though not so striking to superficial hearers, will be regarded hereafter, by close and competent readers, as the most finished of all the productions of his tongue and pen.

One result, it is to be earnestly hoped, will not fail to follow a general circulation of these master-pieces among the generous youth of Mr. Webster's native land. It is to be hoped that his style of elocution, calm, slow dignified, natural, unambitious, and yet direct and powerful, will take the place of that showy, flowery, flashy, fitful and boisterous sort of speaking, which seems to be becoming too common, which so breaks down the health of the speaker, and which is nevertheless most likely to strike the feelings and corrupt the judgment of the young. Let me here say plainly, that, having heard Mr. Webster speak very frequently, on almost every variety of occasion, I have never heard him, even when most excited, raise his voice higher, or sink it lower, or utter his words more rapidly than he could do consistently with the most perfect ease, and with the utmost dignity of movement. He never played the orator. He never seemed to be making any effort. What he had to say he said as easily, as naturally, and yet as forcibly and possible, with such a voice as he used in common conversation, only elevated and strengthened to meet the demands of his large audiences. So intent did he seem to be, so intent he certainly was, in making his hearers see and feel as he did, in relation to the subject of the hour, that no one thought of his manner, or whether he had any manner, till the speech was over. That is oratory, true oratory; and it is to be hoped that the more general distribution of these masterpieces will have the ultimate effect of making it the American standard of oratory from this age to all future ages. (5-6)

From the Preface to Speeches of Daniel Webster, Selected by Rev. B. F. Tefft, D.D., LL.D., Embracing His Acknowledged Masterpieces in Each Department of the Great Field of Intellectual Action. NY: A. L. Burt Company, n.d. (1852?)

Description of Marjorie Bly from 1959

Earlier I mentioned a letter I had read that included a description of Marjorie Bly. Judy Manwell (Moore), an Oberlin "rep" to Taiwan in the late 1950s, had the opportunity to meet Marjorie Bly during a trip to Penghu in 1959. Judy wrote a letter to the Oberlin community on January 30, 1959 about her trip. She has given me permission to post the part of a letter about her visit with Bly:

Marjorie Bly: A name, it seemed to be last year, which went well among Protestant pioneers and saints--rhythmical, forthright, pronounceable. Many times in Taiwan and even in Hong Kong I had heard the name and how its owner, an American nurse, had dedicated herself to helping the lepers out there on the lonely little Pescadores [Penghu]--"and how she can stand it I don't know...really admirable!" It happened that while we were sitting in the little airlines office poring over their map and thinking how we might get hold of her, our Saint walked in to ask the genial airlines fellow if his kids were still coming over for checkers that night. About 35, she had chosen those classic clothes missionaries buy to stay in style for five years with more verve than most; she was too femininely plump for the traditional Saint, her gaze too direct and unclogged with surplus love of humanity for the modern Peale Saint. She took us to the General Hospital, explaining that it was her goal to incorporate treatment of lepers with that of the other sick people. She had come out six years before with a few glowing letters from Pescadores patients treated by her in a Taipei leprosarium, which made her welcome in their families and talked about in others. Her visits to to other homes, however, had at first brought terror that the dread disease lurked there. Gradually they saw that in most homes she found no leprosy; where she did find it she could relieve the age-old horror. They began to bring their symptoms into the little laboratory marked "dermatology." Here a fat solemn-looking Taiwanese nurse works Miss Bly's struggling Chinese into the patients' language. After a few minutes' chatting she got us off on an excursion to another island and went back to work. Several hours later we staggered off a grimy little boat. It had been a rough trip, especially because everybody crowded to one side to avoid spray, putting us, if no one else, in constant fear of capsizing. With soggy but dogged conscientiousness, we had huddled alone on the spray-beaten side. We were weary of living, though glad to be alive. And there was Marjorie to take us to a cup of coffee. There had been no cozy cordial invitation before we left--there was just this moment of bliss on returning. We sat for a long time in her bare shop-like room which she loved for its privacy, and we drank hoarded coffee and ate the little bean cakes which are the eternal reward for making friends in China and the eternal acid--or sickenly sweet--test of one's inter-cultural adapt[a]bility. We talked about her Christmas tree of green paper on white artfully festooned with Christmas-card cut-outs ("I made that for the hospital a couple years ago. I got disgusted with this place. No Christmas. I brought back that white cellophane one you saw in the lab from a dime store in the States.") Thinking of her brave efficient single-handed Christmas, somebody asked, "Are there many other Westerners around?" "Twenty or thirty military advisers." "See much of them?" "They very kindly included me in their Thanksgiving dinner." We talked about America--"I was a case for Freud this last furlough at home. I went around speaking and speaking and no one could ever understand me. I was so glad to come back...here they never thought I would return. I guess I really surprised them. I'm glad they know somebody really cares enough about this little place."

Thanks again to Judy Manwell Moore for allowing me to quote from her letter!

Marjorie Bly of Penghu passes away

A while back, I posted about Marjorie Bly, a nurse who treated lepers in Penghu for over 50 years. I heard the other day from her cousin that she has passed away.

Here's an article in the Taipei Times about her passing:

Aunty White dies at 89

Marjorie Bly, a nurse from the US who treated lepers on Penghu for 54 years, died on Tuesday of heart failure. She was 89. Bly's heart failure was the result of pneumonia brought on by a bout of flu, said her doctor, Wu Fang-tsan (吳芳燦). Paying his last respects to Bly at the hospital, Penghu County Commissioner Wang Chien-fa (王乾發) described Bly as "Penghu's angel" and said her death would bring sorrow to many, adding that the county government would issue a public statement recognizing her long-term devotion to the island. Wu Wen-chung (吳文忠), a local priest, said local residents would follow Bly's instructions and decorate her funeral ceremony with her sunflowers. Wu said the funeral would be simple, with little talk and hymns. Bly herself requested this, Wu said, because "she did not pass away. She is just sleeping." Bly, nicknamed "Aunty White," by local residents, was assigned to Taiwan by her church in 1952. She arrived in Penghu two years after that. Last April, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) bestowed a state medal upon Bly in recognition of her contributions and sacrifices for the people of Penghu.

男人的 what??

After eating lunch at 客家本色 this afternoon, we went to pay the bill and noticed that the restaurant was playing music from Luo Shifeng's latest album. I wasn't sure that I was reading the title of his album correctly, so I asked the former native Chinese speaker, who "read" loudly, "男人的 LP." It took us both a minute to realize that the title is supposed to read, "男人的汗" and then we had a good laugh at our own expense. In our defense, though, don't you think the last character in the title could be easily mistaken for LP?*


*On the meaning of "LP", see here.

Videos of The Mike Wallace Interview

(via)

The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin has put episodes of The Mike Wallace Interview from 1957-8 on their website. There are video files of most of the episodes and transcripts of all of them.

As the website says,

Mike Wallace rose to prominence in 1956 with the New York City television interview program, Night-Beat, which soon developed into the nationally televised prime-time program, The Mike Wallace Interview. Well prepared with extensive research, Wallace asked probing questions of guests framed in tight close-ups. The result was a series of compelling and revealing interviews with some of the most interesting and important people of the day.

Alex Reid over at digital digs describes a writing assignment his daughter is given:

Today's 3rd grade in-class writing assignment: why I love America. Of course one must be sure to follow the format. I love America. The reason I love America is because... Add three examples; close with repetition. My daughter discovers that the answer to the question here is that she loves America because of "freedom." Huh? That's some pretty heavy irony, don't you think? You must write that you love America, you must write that you love America because of the freedom you experience, and you must follow this specific format in writing your response. I mean if it was a movie you'd be rolling your eyes that this was laying it all on pretty think, right?

(Reid writes elsewhere about the factors leading him to consider home-schooling his daughter.)

I assume the part about the dance floor is metaphorical...

Your time of day has a split personality -- sometimes it's sweat-streaked and loud, and you're on the dance floor, getting your third wind, and shouting lyrics like you'll never run out of energy. You are the time of night that carves itself into your memory forever, because you'll never forget how much you love these people and this moment and this song. It's not always about unforgettable parties, though. Sometimes your late night (err... early morning) burst of energy happens when you're home alone. Those are the times when you say, "I flat out refuse to go to sleep until I finish reading this book, or typing this page, or reorganizing my entire closet." In either case, you are the time of night when it feels sort of forbidden to be awake, but you love accomplishing something special long after everyone else went to bed. And hey -- you can always catch up on sleep tomorrow, right?

CFP: International Society for the History of Rhetoric

Almost didn't see this one in time...

The Seventeenth Biennial Conference of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (ISHR) will be held in Montreal, Canada, from Wednesday, July 22th July to Sunday, July 26 2009.

The biennial conference of ISHR brings together several hundred specialists in the history of rhetoric from around thirty countries. This will be the first meeting of the Society in Canada since 1997.

SCHOLARLY FOCUS OF THE CONFERENCE
The Society calls for papers that focus on the theory and practice of rhetoric in its historical contexts from classical period to the present.

The main theme of the conference is "Innovative Perspective in the History of Rhetoric". Over the last two decades, new fields of investigation have emerged in the research being done in the history of rhetoric – or should we say "Histories of rhetorics". New spheres of activities (religious studies, queer studies, feminist writings, etc.) as much as new geographical areas (Amerindian, Asian and African traditions, among others) have questioned the a priori of a universal and hegemonic model based on a classical and occidental definition of the history of rhetoric. Papers exploring these new trends in Western and Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas are welcomed.

Papers are also invited on every aspect of the history of rhetoric in all periods and languages and the relationship of rhetoric to poetics, literary theory and criticism, philosophy, politics, law, and other elements of the cultural context.

PROCEDURE FOR SUBMISSION
Proposals should be submitted for a 20-minute presentation delivered in English, French, German, Italian, Latin, or Spanish.

Group proposals are welcome, under the following conditions. The group must consist of 3 or 4 speakers dealing with a common theme in order to form a coherent panel. One person must be responsible for the panel. Each paper must stand on its own as an independent presentation. Each speaker submits a proposal form for his or her own paper; proposals for such papers must specify the group for which they are intended. In addition, the person who is responsible for the group must complete and submit a form explaining the purpose of the proposed panel.

Proposals for papers and for groups must be submitted on-line (http://www.ishr.mcgill.ca). Please fill out the on-line form carefully.

Proposals may also be sent by mail to the following address:
Diane Desrosiers-Bonin, McGill University, Department of French Language and Literature, 853 Sherbrooke West, Montreal (Qc), Canada H3A 2T6.

Guidelines for preparing proposals are provided at the bottom of this message. The length of the abstracts must not exceed 350 words.

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS
The deadline for submitting proposals is May 15th, 2008.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent out in September 2008. In a few cases participants may require an earlier acceptance date in order to secure funding. We will try to accommodate such requests if they are made with appropriate documentation.

Information about the conference, including accommodation at negotiated favorable rates, will be provided during the academic year 2008-2009. The conference registration fee is still to be determined; by way of indication it was around 125 euros / 150 US dollars for the previous conferences. Graduate students and scholars from certain countries may be eligible for reduced registration fees.

Looking forward to your participation,

Diane Desrosiers-Bonin
President, International Society for the History of Rhetoric

Guidelines for the preparation of proposals :
The members of ISHR come from many countries and academic disciplines. The following guidelines are intended to make it easier for us to come together and understand one another's proposals. The Program Committee recommends that all proposals contain:

1) a definition - accessible to a non-specialist - of the field of the proposal, including chronological period, language, texts, and other sources;

2) a statement of the problem that will be treated; its place in relation to the present state of research in the field under consideration; its stakes for the history of rhetoric;

3) a summary of the stages of argumentation involved in treating the problem;

4) scientific results and gains.

Somebody help me...

I've just used "thematize", "narrativize," and "textualize" all together in one paragraph.

Does anyone have an enema for my brain?

Some interesting posts to get back to when I have time

These posts are all related to access in academic publishing--access to publications (as a writer) and open access to published resources (in other words, open access).

• Christmas –time Simultaneous Submission of Multiple Articles, on Suresh Canagarajah's blog (contains comments from Clyde Warden that I think I agree with!)
• open access publishing, on digital digs, which links to
• open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals, on apophenia

(I know, I should really figure out del.icio.us one of these days...)

CNY Vignettes

Kerim has a post illustrating more-or-less what my CNY (Chinese New Year) has been like so far. More or less because I've been trying to work in the midst of CNY festivities and have been less successful at work than Kerim seems to have been.

Last year we took off the day after CNY to go to Oberlin. So this year we're spending some time with the in-laws (who fortunately have a net connection), and I'm prepared. I've brought along a big huge book to read and some of my dissertatables. But I don't have my laptop along because I figure(d) I can use the computer in the living room when no one else is at it. I don't want to spend too much time hiding up in the third floor bedroom away from everyone. That'd be unsociable.

When we get there I find that my biggest competition for computer time, my five-year-old nephew, is coming CNY Eve--a surprise since I thought they wouldn't show until the next day at least. Oh well. I always have my book.

Reading turns out to be OK, but I have to do it in our third-floor bedroom away from all the noise going on downstairs. I have to wrap myself up in a couple of blankets, too, since the room is about 10 degrees C. (That's cold!) After a few hours of that, my very long American nose has icicles hanging from it.

***

The red envelope in the nephew's pocket keeps falling out, and finally his mom can't stand it anymore and tells him she's confiscating it. He says, "You can have it."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Does it still have money in it?"

"Yes, it does." Pause. "I love you, so I'm giving it to you."

From what I know about Hakka families, family members don't say "I love you" very much, so my sister-in-law's face registers a combination of emotions: tenderness mixed with shock mixed with embarrassment. (He's sure to make use of this the next time his dad yells at him.)

***

A couple of days later, I finally get a chance to spend some time on the diss. during a lull in the computer use. I gather up my Oolong tea and my dissertatables and set myself in front of the computer. Pop in my flash drive, open up my new chapter in Word. I decide to resave my file under a new name, just in case, but find that I can't find the "Save as..." function. (They have a really new version of Word, all crazy colors and undecipherable icons and I can't do a thing with it...) So I give up on resaving and just start working. A few minutes later I want to insert a footnote and find I can't find the insert footnote function, either. So I end up copying and pasting another footnote and changing its content. Whatever.

After about 10 minutes of this, the nephew comes over wondering what game I'm playing. We end up playing the crazy taxi driver game on the computer instead, since we agree my game wasn't as interesting as this is. The crazy taxi driver game is where you drive the wrong way down streets, through parks and lakes, into mailboxes and palm trees and up walls in order to get your fares to their destinations asap. (It's great training for future drivers here.) We play that until dinner time. After dinner visitors come by and you pretty much can't dissertate in the living room when you've got company. Lots of folks ask me how my dissertation is going and tell me I need to work harder on it.

***

It finally happens--something I've been worrying would happen for years. With an evil grin on his face, my nephew comes up to me as we're all sitting in the living room, looks at me, and announces, "Meiguo ren!" *Sigh* My own nephew... Maybe I shouldn't have insisted that he call me "Uncle" in English...

Despite that, my wife and I take him out to a coffee house/amusement park-type something or other place (undefinable this place is) the next day. He and I take a ride on a little train that runs around the park, we get him a balloon, and he runs around for a while, which worries us (especially when he runs down the 45 degree hill to the parking lot). But he's pretty well behaved and doesn't call me "Meiguo ren" anymore, so I can't complain.

So I haven't gotten a whole lot of work so far since 2/6, but I suppose when I look back on this winter break, I won't count it a total loss. And we still have a few weeks until the spring semester starts, so I'm not totally without hope.

Two new books in the former native speaker's library

We visited Chung-Yo Dept. Store last night and, as usual, spent most of the time in the Eslite Bookstore there. I picked up two interesting, picture-filled books about Taiwan:

• 台灣西方文明初體驗 (Taiwan's First Experiences of Western Civilization), by 陳柔縉 (Chen Rouxin). This has some interesting chapters in it about how aspects of "Western Civilization" like toothpaste, running water, and English first entered Taiwan. (A lot seems to have come via the Japanese.)
• 一九五0年代的臺灣 (1950s Taiwan), by 吳昆財 (Wu Kuncai). This is an illustrated history of Taiwan in the 1950s. (For some reason, LibraryThing has this book mixed up with a book of Japanese manga...?)
  

Anyway, I can look through these while the in-laws are playing mah-jong...

The socially inept interviewer, or, Things I wish we had covered in the methods course

Dear Miss Manners,

Semi-hypothetical situation: You're writing an e-mail to people you want to interview. You want to ask them about some experiences they had, say, thirty or forty years ago. At the time, they were a couple and you have no information that indicates that they are no longer together. So you write to them both: "Mr. and Mrs. X" (or something like that, depending on circumstances).

You get a response from one of them, using the first person singular throughout. S/he is willing to do the interview. But you really want to interview the other member of that couple, too. How do you ask the person who responded to you about the other person?

(Stop looking at me like that! I told you I was socially inept from the beginning!)

New mantra

Provided by the inimitable ERG:

Gonna be all done
When I'm forty-one.

We'll see...

Bill Degenaro on his tenure portfolio

Bill Degenaro at the University of Michigan Dearborn has two posts up about working on his tenure portfolio. I'm hoping he says more about the process, but perhaps there are some things he wouldn't want to go into (just like I wouldn't want to go too much into my feelings about the three-year review process that some of us are in here). He does mention one thing that I think is similar with our situation here:

The university-wide format does not always allow for easy articulation of the work of humanists. I can see how some of the categories that represent the work of scientists can cause anxiety. I have nothing to put under patents, licensures, synergistic activities (the example given in the tenure guidelines literature: "developed a methodology for modeling and analysis of system robustness"... err, I haven't done that), or technical reviews. Does that make me look weak? Conversely, I find myself relegating some work--writing entries for encyclopedias, chairing the 4Cs nominating committee--to "other" sections.

We have a three-year review form tailored (I think) to the College of Arts faculty, but there are still a few things that need to be ironed out about it. In the version that I used (given to us in Excel worksheet format, natch), you could get 100 points in research for publishing in an SSCI ranked journal, 80 for publishing in TSSCI, and 50 for other journals. No distinction was made for A&HCI or THCI. (This situation will be changed in the near future, I hope.)

Fortunately, I haven't been required to detail any synergistic activities I've been involved in (sounds mighty personal, if you ask me).

CFP: "Re-visioning English Studies in Asia"

Looks interesting...

“Re-visioning English Studies in Asia”

The English Language and Literature Association of Korea
International Conference
November 20-22, 2008
Onyang Hot Spring Hotel, Onyang, Korea

The English Language and Literature Association of Korea (ELLAK) invites papers for its 2008 international conference on “Re-visioning English Studies in Asia.” The conference aims at bringing together scholars and teachers of English language and literature to discuss academic, professional, and institutional issues particular to English studies in the wider Asian region. We are interested in examining the history of English studies in Asia—its past, present, and future—in different national and cultural contexts around Asia. How is “English” defined today in Asia? What are the particular responsibilities and challenges of this field today? We hope to foster new cross-cultural and cross-regional conversations that will lay the basis for cooperative projects and debates in the future.

Topics of discussion may include (but are not limited to):

- Teaching English Literature in English vs. Teaching English Literature in an Asian Language
- ESL/EFL Policies at the National/State Level
- Canon and Curriculum
- English Literature and Cultural Capital
- Whose Asia? Orientalism and Occidentalism
- Contemporary Asian Literature in English
- English Studies in Asia in the Age of Theory
- Nationalism/Transnationalism in Asia
- Globalization Theories and Literary Studies
- Asian-American Studies in Asia
- Diversifying “English Literature”
- The South Asian Novel in English
- Postcolonialism and Subaltern Studies in Asia
- Writing/Mapping Asia: Representing Asia in English Literature
- Effective Pedagogical Strategies to Manage the Asian Classroom
- Diaspora Studies
- (Bilingualism & Multilingualism in) Inter-Asia Studies
- Digital/Computation and English Studies in Asia

Proposals for 20-minute papers should include a 250-word abstract and a brief curriculum vitae with contact and affiliation information. Please send proposals to Dr. Eun Kyung Min (Dept. of English, Seoul National University, eunmin_at_snu.ac.kr) by March 1, 2008. Proposals for panels are also welcome. Accepted papers will be announced by April 15, 2008. Please consult www.ellak.or.kr for updates and announcements.

(via)

Three new books in the former native speaker's library

First, a Christmas gift from my brother and sister-in-law:

• The Ugly American by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick (1958)
  Read it before, but didn't have my own copy.

Two books that came today:

• The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin (2005)
• Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior by Erving Goffman (1967)

I suspect I'll dip into these two during the winter vacation (when I'm not dissertating, of course. Ahem...)