More pictures taken on Sunday

Here are some pictures we took of the Central Mountain Range on Sunday. They were taken from the fifth floor of the Humanities building at Tunghai. We had a good view of the mountains after the rain cleaned up the air.

The construction on the left is of "Moon River," a new apartment building (like we need any more around here...)




The tall tower is a building called, simply, "Hotel ONE".

The following two are "stitched" shots...

Trip to the Daodong Tutorial Academy

The weather cleared up a bit yesterday, so the former native Chinese speaker and I took a trip to Hemei in Changhua to look at the Daodong Tutorial Academy there. We went to the Huangsi Academy in Taichung County a while back and thought it would be interesting to see another of the traditional schools set up here.

The visitor's guide to the Academy describes it as follows:

Local gentlemen advocated and offered a land for building the Daodong Tutorial Academy in 1857, and it was completed the following year. It is a compound with traditional Chinese houses around a courtyard which sits north, and faces south.

Here are some of the pictures we took of the Academy. Most of these were taken by the former native Chinese speaker.

The main gate



The front of the school



Some lianwu (wax apples) growing on a tree said to be over 100 years old



The entrance to the school building--the guide told us that the center door was reserved for officials, elites, or other grand high muck-a-mucks. If you look at the picture of the front of the school, you'll see the two side doors have steps leading up to them, but the center door has a ramp. That wasn't for wheelchair access; it was for carrying someone up in a palanquin (轎子).



A newer painting, dating from 2004. This painting is found near the front door of the building.



An older painting, dating from 1884. I have to admit I like the older ones better than the newer ones, but a lot of the school had to be rebuilt after years of disuse. The most recent major work done on it was after the 921 earthquake in 1999.



Prayers from area students who want to get into particular schools (the local 'deity' is Zhu Xi, the "father" of Neoconfucianism)



This is interesting--they used this to burn paper that had been written on, as a way to honor Cang Jie, who, as legend has it, is responsible for the Chinese writing system. Since Chinese characters are, I guess, sacred, people were not allowed to throw away paper that had been written on.

I've got more pictures of the school here, in case anyone is interested. We had a nice time, and a staff member named Miss Tung was especially helpful in answering our questions. Here's a pic of her and me:

(Next time I'll shave before going out with a camera. You never know...)

[Updated 17 June 2008]

[Update 11 June  2016: I just came across a more recent post on the Daodong Academy on Alexander Synaptic's blog. It includes a pretty creepy story about an event that took place at the temple after our trip there in 2008.]

End-of-the-school-year activities

I've been getting my picture taken a lot lately, not because of my killer good looks (though I'm sure that's one reason), but because my Freshman English students took me out for dinner this week. In return for their feeding me, I stared into the lenses of their many cameras and gave the "Y" finger gesture (known as the "V" for "victory" in the US) many times. Here's some of the evidence.

I had a great time with my students this year and will miss them. They're like the children I don't have (and, hence, whose tuition I don't have to pay). Seriously, though, it has been especially poignant for me this semester because two of my students, a current student from International Trade and (her boyfriend) a former student from Public Management, were in a serious traffic accident in April and have both been in the hospital since then. Sometimes I feel like the world is such a dangerous place...

This afternoon we also went to a going-away party for two teachers who are retiring, Olivia Chang and Paul Harwood. Olivia and Paul (and Jan, too!), we'll miss you and wish you the best!

Dragon Boat deliciosities

Mmmm.... good... Nothing like homemade zongzi...

What philosophy do I follow?

I'm evidently quite confused...

What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Utilitarianism Your life is guided by the principles of Utilitarianism: You seek the greatest good for the greatest number. “The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” --Jeremy Bentham “Whenever the general disposition of the people is such, that each individual regards those only of his interests which are selfish, and does not dwell on, or concern himself for, his share of the general interest, in such a state of things, good government is impossible.” --John Stuart Mill More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page... Utilitarianism 60% Justice (Fairness) 55% Hedonism 55% Strong Egoism 50% Kantianism 50% Existentialism 45% Nihilism 45% Apathy 35% Divine Command 35%

CFP: Tamkang International Conference on Second Language Writing: Issues and Concerns

Tamkang International Conference on Second Language Writing: Issues and Concerns

Call for Abstracts:
Writing as one of the fundamental language skills has traditionally posed a variety of challenges for second language teachers and learners. Once the writing skill is placed within particular contexts, these challenges multiply. These range from addressing writing skills within exam-driven traditional curricula to navigating the proliferation of technologies, to creating meaningful contexts for the learning of writing and managing the workload created for teachers when students write and expect feedback. This conference is intended as a forum for addressing the full range of pedagogical and research issues on second language writing. Abstracts are invited for papers on any aspects of foreign or second language writing learning and pedagogy. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Cognitive perspectives in L2 writing
• Learning Strategies
• Critical Literacy
• Identity in Literacy Instruction
• L2 writing pedagogy
• Reading/writing connection
• CMC in literacy instruction
• Academic writing
• Foreign language writing within school curricula
• Writing instruction integrating other language skills
• Second language writing integrated with other content areas (content-based instruction and writing across the curriculum, for example)
• Emerging literacies and issues of register (including technology-enabled influences on literacies and register exerted by the proliferation of e-mail, mobile devices and messaging, and the rise of the blog)
• Issues of feedback on student writing
• Research issues in writing pedagogy
• Voice and issues of empowerment
• Writing within standardized/institutional exam systems: (TOEFL, GEPT, etc.)
• Writing and technology
• The composing process

Important Dates:
Abstracts due: July 20th, 2008
Acceptance Notification: August 20th, 2008
Camera-ready papers due: November. 30th, 2008
Conference dates: December 5-6, 2008

Submit abstracts via email to: Wendy, miracle [at] mail.tku.edu.tw

Or mail to:
English Department, Tamkang University,
151 Ying-chuan Road, Tamsui, Taipei County Taiwan 25137, R.O.C.
Tel : 886-26215656 ext. 2344

Abstracts should not exceed 350 words in length (including references) and should include a clear description of the issue(s) addressed and a sketch of results. Include the author’s name, affiliation, and postal and email addresses.

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...)

The Bridges at Toko-Ri

Picked up a collection of William Holden movies the other day, mainly to watch The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), which is based on a novel James Michener wrote a couple of years after The Voice of Asia came out. Despite my general aversion to war movies, I found myself taken in by much of the movie. I'm still trying to figure out how that happened.

One reason, I think, was the characterization of the protagonist, Lt. Harry Brubaker, as portrayed by Holden. He's an unwilling hero--he's been drafted back into the Navy after serving in WWII and he seems deeply resentful of the fact that he has to be fighting in Korea when other people don't. He wants to get back to his family and career in the States. When he complains to his commander, Admiral Tarrant, Tarrant tells him, "You fight because you're here," suggesting that an unavoidable fate has brought Brubaker (and the U.S.) to this place.

Brubaker gets a chance to visit his wife and children in Japan, but then has to return to duty. The time with his family is perhaps there to remind viewers of what Brubaker is sacrificing. Tarrant has a chance to tell Brubaker's wife Nancy about the dangerous mission her husband will be going on soon because the Admiral feels that his own son, who died in battle, should have told his wife more about what he was going through. Tarrant seems to resent the fact that, as he puts it, people in the U.S. are so comfortably separated from what is going on in the war.

When Brubaker finds out that he has to participate in the bombing of some key enemy bridges at Toko-Ri, he becomes visibly sick. Brubaker's nervousness, frustration, and (I think) fear at the prospect of losing his life is understated, but well-portrayed by Holden. There's one scene where he is trying to write a letter to Nancy, but keeps crumpling up the paper when the sound of jets overhead disturbs him. He goes up on deck and stands, staring at the sea for a while, then finally wipes the sweat (and tears?) off of his face before going back below.

After Brubaker is shot down during the climactic bombing run, and shortly before he and a comrade die in a firefight in an irrigation ditch, he repeats Tarrant's words ("You fight because you're here") to his comrade, suggesting that he has accepted his fate.

The Wikipedia article on the movie says that this isn't a propaganda film. Perhaps not in a traditional sense--I think the characterization of the protagonist is more complex than in a typical war film of that era (though people who have watched more war movies than I have can disagree). But I think there's an element of propaganda in how the film argues that Americans need to be aware of the sacrifices that the men in the military are making to fight against Communism. Even if Brubaker is an unwilling hero, chosen by fate to be there, in the end he does his duty and doesn't question the need to fight--and neither does his wife. Perhaps it's a propaganda film for a more sophisticated audience, or for an audience that was not yet convinced that the Cold War demanded sacrifices?

Yang Tianshi's talk about CKS's diaries

Prof. Yang Tianshi, who was visiting Taiwan for a conference at Tunghai that took place over the weekend, gave a talk today about Chiang Kai-shek's diaries, which are currently deposited in the archives of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Prof. Yang and the moderator of today's talk, Lu Fang-shang, discussed quite a few topics related to the use of Chiang's diaries in historical research. I'm going to try to read my hen-scratchy notes and see what I can make out of their talk. (By the way, Yang and Lu were interviewed recently for an article in Yazhou Zhoukan.)

Prof. Yang described the diaries, mentioning that CKS rather consistently kept a diary between 1915 and 1972 (3 years before his death). He said that at first, CKS's entries were brief (about 30 characters in length), but got longer around the time of the war with Japan. He noted that CKS also engaged in weekly, monthly, and yearly summaries/reflections.

A screen shot of two pages from one of Chiang's diaries.
(There's a short article about Chiang's diaries here.)

Prof. Yang argued that Chiang's diaries were written mainly for himself rather than being written with an eye to future publication. He said that two key pieces of evidence for this are how much CKS cursed (罵) people close to him, and how much private, even confessional, material is in the diaries. (CKS used to give himself demerits for looking lustily at women.) Prof. Yang argued that CKS would not have wanted this kind of material to be made public. (BTW, as Prof. Lu mentioned, the confessions and self-criticism in CKS's diaries didn't necessarily turn him into a saint...) One result of the private nature of Chiang's diaries, according to Prof. Yang, is that we can learn a lot more about what was really going on in CKS's head at certain important historical moments, such as the 1926 Zhongshan Warship Incident and the 1936 Xi'an Incident.

One thing I wondered about is the role of CKS's diaries in subject formation, and the models that CKS had for his diaries. Prof. Yang mentioned the long history of figures in China who used diaries as tools for self-cultivation. He also discussed how well-read CKS was (particularly, he said, for a military man). Evidently CKS's diaries record his readings in the Confucian classics (particularly the Yijing), Christian works, and Eastern and Western philosophy. I found myself wondering what someone in writing studies or rhetorical studies would do with these diaries--perhaps analyze how the diaries constructed CKS as a reading and writing subject.

One last thing that Prof. Yang mentioned--he said that Chiang's status has risen in China from that of a devil (鬼) to a human (人), while in Taiwan, coincidentally, it seems his status has gone from god to human. (No one commented on the immediate political conditions that might be responsible for that coincidence.)

All in all, Professor Yang's speech was quite engaging--the room was packed, too (though I had the feeling a lot of students were there because they had to be. Ahem...)

More on machine translation

I was warning my students today about the dangers of using "full-sentence translation" features on their electronic dictionaries, giving examples that I've talked about before (here and here).

Now I've got a new example: Danwei has a recent post about Google's machine translation, which says,

A Danwei reader sent in Google's translation for the English word "flippant". It comes out as "刺杀布什的凶手" or "the assassin who stabbed Bush" (see this screen shot).

(For why that happened, check out the original post.)

Upcoming speech about Chiang Kai-shek's diaries

「東海大學教學卓越計畫---人文通識訓練」通識課程學術講座

講題:「蔣介石日記」與兩岸民國史研究

講者:楊天石教授(中國社會科學院近代史研究所研究員)
呂芳上教授(東海大學歷史系教授)

時間:96年12月18日星期二14:00~16:00

地點:H122

歡迎踴躍聽講!!

Sounds interesting. I'll try to attend...

American food in Taichung, circa 1960?

Just taking a break from working on the diss.--specifically, from harassing would-be interviewees with pages of detailed questions about things that they probably don't remember writing. (I mean, I don't remember what I wrote 10 years ago--why should they remember what they wrote 30 or 50 years ago?)

Had a nice bagel and coffee for breakfast (at Bagels 'n Beans), which has got me thinking about Western food in Taichung around the time that I'm covering in my dissertation. A few mentions in letters of having Thanksgiving turkeys (or Christmas turkeys) at Tunghai. Where'd they come from? Were they locally raised? I also recall mentions of the U.S. Officer's Club where people sometimes went to eat. Anyone have an address on that? I seem to vaguely remember seeing it somewhere a long time ago, but I don't remember where.

CFP: Conference on Intercultural Rhetoric and Discourse

Call for Abstracts
4th Conference on
Intercultural Rhetoric and Discourse

June 3‐5, 2008

Indiana University‐Purdue University Indianapolis
Sponsored by the Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication

Plenary Speakers
Dwight Atkinson, Purdue University
Julie Belz, IUPUI
Christine Feak, University of Michigan
Françoise Salager‐Meyer, Universidad de los Andes, Venezuela

Papers are invited on topics including (but not limited to):

• Theoretical and empirical investigations
• Language‐ and culture‐specific studies
• Changing methodologies for research
• Practical applications
• Teaching and classroom practices
• Writing in school and college
• Writing in business and professional settings
• Orality and literacy connections
• Critical approaches to contrastive rhetoric

Deadline for Submission: May 1, 2008

Papers should be 20 minutes long with an additional 10 minutes for discussion.

Abstracts should be no more than 250 words long, typed on a single page. In the upper left‐hand corner, place the submitter's name, address, institutional affiliation, phone and fax numbers, and e‐mail address.

Send submissions to:
IR Conference Planning Committee
Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication
Indiana University‐Purdue University Indianapolis
620 Union Drive, room 407 Indianapolis, IN 46202, U.S.A.

For more information:
(317) 274‐2555
E‐mail: icic@iupui.edu
http://www.iupui.edu/~icic/IRconference.htm

Registration Fees:
$100 early registration,
$115 onsite registration
$50 student registration,
$65 onsite student registration

Inaugural issue of Taiwan in Comparative Perspective out

Just found out that the first issue of this e-journal, published by the Taiwan Culture Research Programme at the London School of Economics, came out in November. Here's its table of contents--the links go directly to the articles' pdfs (I have already asked them to set up an RSS feed):

Articles

‘Communism’ in Taiwan and the Mainland: Transmission of the Great Leap Famine and of the White Terror
Stephan Feuchtwang

Death-Scapes in Taipei and Manila: A Postmodern Necrography
Paul-François Tremlett

The Intrusive Rendering: Dictation of Stereotypes and the Extra-Ordinary
Doreen Bernath

Commentaries

The EU Two-Level Sovereignty System as Model for Taiwan and China
Bengt Johansson

Ethnicity in the Politics of the Unreal
Allen Chun

The 'Red' Tide Anti-Corruption Protest: What Does it Mean for Democracy in Taiwan?
Fang-long Shih

Reviews

Huang Zhang-jian (2007) Er-er-ba shijian zhenxiang kaozheng gao (The Truth about 2-28: Assessing the Documents)
Stefan Fleischauer

Shao-li Lu (2005) Zhanshi Taiwan: quanli, kongjian yu zhimin tongzhi de xingxiang biaoshu (Exhibiting Taiwan: Power, Space and Image Representation of Japanese Colonial Rule)
Edward Vickers

Mark Harrison, Legitimacy, Meaning, and Knowledge in the making of Taiwanese identity
Paul-François Tremlett

Response to Tremlett's Review of Legitimacy, Meaning, and Knowledge in the making of Taiwanese identity
Mark Harrison

By the way, the editors mention in their submission guidelines that academic article submissions to the journal "should contain a comparative perspective in the widest sense. This could mean comparisons between Taiwan and other parts of the world, Taiwan in the past and in the present, different regions and cultures of Taiwan, or different methodological and disciplinary approaches to the study of a theme or issue concerning Taiwan."

And I haven't even had a chance to visit it yet...

This seems to be a sign of the times, but it's still bizarre...

Much of Stanford University’s historic East Asian collection is destined for storage at a facility 38 miles from the campus as the university prepares to tear down the collection’s home, Meyer Library, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

(via)

Upcoming talk by Karen Kingsbury on translating Eileen Chang

Karen Kingsbury, former associate professor at Tunghai and translator of Eileen Chang's Love in a Fallen City, will be speaking at Tunghai on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 at 2:10 p.m. (Place: FL 007). Her talk is titled "Translating Eileen Chang: Love, Lust, Life."

(Thanks to Daisy Chuang for the information!)

Seven facts meme

I've been tagged by runningburro do do the "7 Facts About Me" meme. The rules:

1. List the link to your tagger and also post these following rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird, etc.
3. Tag 7 people at the the end of your blog also leaving the links to their blogs
4. Let them know they are "TAGGED" by leaving a comment on their blog

Here's my list. Do you see any motifs running through it?

1. My students often refer to me as "Mr. Bean." (Not to my face, though.) Considering some of the nicknames I've heard students give teachers, I'm inclined to take this as a compliment.
2. If you type "Mr. Benda" into Google, it'll ask, "Did you mean: "Mr. Bean"?"
3. One of my favorite lunches: a bean sandwich. Take two slices of bread, spread a lot of butter on them, then spoon some pork and beans onto one of the slices. If you're adventurous, you can add a slice of cheese. Eat it with together with some pickles and wash it down with a Dr Pepper. Ah! Heaven!
4. When I was at my "I want to be a farmer when I grow up" stage, I rented a garden plot from the County Agricultural Extension Office. One of my best crops was string beans.
5. Despite my success with growing (and eating) beans, I've never cared for three-bean salad. (I've heard my mom makes great three-bean salad, though.)
6. When I first came to Taiwan in 1990, I walked into a bakery one day and saw what looked to me like a delicious chocolate-filled pastry. To my surprise and dismay, when I bit into it, the "chocolate" turned out to be red bean paste. (I'm colorblind.) Since that time, I've never had the courage to eat anything with red beans in it.
7. One of my favorite Taiwanese foods: stinky tofu.

Most of the people I would tag don't have blogs, so if you read this, consider yourself tagged. Reply in the comments section!

Help!

Tunghai is beginning a new system of evaluations of its faculty. (I believe it's an MOE requirement.) Every three years, we have to turn in a documented report of what we've been doing the last three years in teaching, research, service, and counseling/advising. Mine's due tomorrow.

I need a title for this thing? Ideas?

CFP: National Conference on College English

CALL FOR PAPERS
National Conference on College English
March 29, 2008
Foreign Language Center, National Chengchi University

“Perspectives on College English:
Transformation, Reformation, and Innovation”

We are pleased to announce that the 2nd National Conference on College English with the theme of “Perspectives on College English: Transformation, Reformation, and Innovation” will be held on March 29, 2008. The conference is an annual gathering of English specialists organized by the Foreign Language Center of National Chengchi University. It provides a professional venue for teachers and scholars to discuss various issues regarding English education in colleges.

Though both the required and the elective English courses for undergraduates serve massive students from different disciplines, college English has long been marginalized as a “sub-subject” in universities in Taiwan. Recently, college English has been gaining ground due to new demands from globalization and international competition and cooperation on higher education in Taiwan. Proliferating studies have broadened the spectrum of college English research beyond discussions of freshman English or English skill instruction in Taiwan. This year’s conference will focus on how teachers help students transform their English learning attitudes to become autonomous learners and student researchers, how teachers challenge their teaching philosophy to meet pressing demands in an age of globalization, how teachers adopt/adapt/design new curricula/pedagogies/materials for innovation, how students are empowered to critically participate in public debates and intellectual communications, what the impacts of English admission/graduation requirements are, and how school systems are being changed or reformed to support teachers’ teaching and research as well as students’ learning.

The 2008 conference features well-respected speakers who will address various aspects and issues in terms of transformation, reformation and innovation in college English. This conference invites proposals on topics that include but are not limited to the following:

- The dynamics of English in higher education
- Institutional policies and politics on college English
- English requirements for college admission/graduation and their impacts on teaching and learning
- Teachers’ or students’ transformation in teaching or learning
- Theory and practice in college English
- Learner autonomy
- Evaluation and assessment
- Curricular, material, or pedagogical innovations and developments

The Conference Organizing Committee is now circulating a call for abstract proposals for individual paper presentations. Abstracts are welcome in any areas that fit the conference theme. Please submit your abstract proposal of 250-500 words and a brief bio in either English or Chinese as a Word/PDF attachment file to flcenter@nccu.edu.tw by February 1, 2008. Final manuscripts submitted for blind review of the conference proceedings are due by April 1, 2008.

Important dates:

• Conference Date: March 29, 2008
• Abstract Date: February 1, 2008
• Abstract Acceptance: February 19, 2008
• Full manuscript Due: April 1, 2008
  

Conference organizer: Foreign Language Center, National Chengchi University
Venue: Conference Rooms, Administration Building, National Chengchi University
Postal Address:

Foreign Language Center, National Chengchi University
64, Sec 2, Zhi-nan Rd., Wenshan District
Taipei 11605, Taiwan

E-mail Address: flcenter@nccu.edu.tw

Contact Person:
Chang, Ya-jing
(02)2939-3091 ext. 62396
nada@nccu.edu.tw

ICRT's oral histories

Has anyone been listening to the "oral histories" that Rick Monday has been featuring this week on ICRT? Evidently he's been interviewing American expats who have lived in Taiwan for a long time. I only caught one--today--as I was driving to work this morning. (I know, it's embarrassing to admit that I listen to ICRT, but it was either that or Rum, Sodomy & the Lash for about the 5,000th time.)

Today, Rick was interviewing Doris Brougham (of Studio Classroom fame) and a gentleman whose name I didn't catch. They were having a grand old time praising the virtues of the Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Now I respect the fact that they have been in Taiwan a lot longer than I have, but some of their comments didn't reflect very well on them, in my view.

Particularly odd was a comment that I believe Dr. Brougham made when they were discussing the dismantling of Chiang statues. Her statement was to the effect that people in the South (by which she meant the southern U.S.) didn't take down statues of Lincoln just because the South lost the Civil War. Besides the very strange equation of Chiang and Lincoln, her comment made me wonder how many Lincoln statues there are in the South that could have been torn down. According to this article, the first statue of Lincoln in one of the former Confederate states was unveiled in 2003. So it's not like carpet-baggers put up dozens of statues of Lincoln after the Civil War that are available for tearing down.

I think a more comparable controversy concerning tradition (they used the word "traditional" to defend the Chiang statues), public memory, and remembering vs. honoring would be the statues of Lenin in Russia. Would Dr. Brougham defend keeping Lenin's statues up because it's "tradition"?

That said, I wish I could have heard more of the oral histories they have been conducting. Wonder if ICRT will release a CD or have them available on their website?

CFP: "National Image Management in Asia"

Got this in my e-mail the other day.

Place Branding and Public Diplomacy

Call for Papers for Special Issue
National Image Management in Asia

Guest Editor
Dr. Jian “Jay” Wang
Department of Communication
Purdue University, USA

Asia looms large in our global imagination. Today, it is home to the world’s second largest economy, and the world’s two most populous nations and fastest-growing markets. It has diverse cultural heritage, distinct political traditions, and varying levels of development. With their growing role and impact in global politics and economy, countries in Asia are increasingly aware of the importance of their image and reputation as an integral part of their development strategies.

This special issue of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy seeks to advance our understanding of national, regional and city image management in East, Central, South, and Southeast Asia. Topics may include but are certainly not limited to the following:

• Perceptions and images of these countries/regions/cities in the international arena, and their sources and outcome (intended or unintentional);
• Production, distribution, reception, and impact of image management and communication efforts undertaken;
• Structure, process, and policy for place image management;
• Goals and priorities embodied in these efforts, e.g., policy communication, promotion of ideals and values, mutual understanding and relationship development;
• Actors/players in the process, e.g., nation-state and local governments, civic/nongovernmental organizations, business, media, citizens, diasporas, cultural institutions, and celebrities and pop culture figures;
• Communication platforms, e.g., media-oriented programs, cultural communication tools, new media technologies, advertising, public relations, and other communication tactics.
  

We welcome empirical research (with no preferences for methods or approaches) and concept papers that genuinely advance the field of place branding and public diplomacy. We are also interested in case studies that detail all or some of the key aspects in problem definition, objectives, actions taken, program organization, results/impact, and lessons learned/recommendations.

Manuscripts will be double-blind peer reviewed. All submissions must follow the author guidelines, available at http://www.palgrave-journals.com/pb/author_instructions.html. The deadline for submission is January 15, 2008. Papers should be emailed as Word files to Dr. Jay Wang at jianwang@purdue.edu.

Hmmm... seems to me I was gonna say something here...

Been doing a lot of waiting recently. Yesterday the former native Chinese speaker and I went to a certain unnamed teahouse (that claims it's the inventor of bubble/pearl milk tea) and waited an hour for my lunch to show up. (The fnCs got hers relatively quickly.) But the guy who delivered my meal apologized all over the place and gave us some coupons for free tea the text time we have a spare afternoon to wait for it.

Then this morning we went to the New! Improved! Mini-story of Foreign Affairs office in Fengyuan to get the address on my Alien Residence Card changed. (You gotta do that within 15 days of moving, or they'll fine you NT$5000.) Used to be you could go to the Foreign Affairs Police in the Fengyuan Police Station, wait a few minutes, get yelled at by the officer because you didn't bring the right documents, and be on your way pretty quickly.

Now you go to the New! Improved! MoFA office across the street--look for the banner that says, "Taiwan for UN--Peace Forever!" (or is it "UN for Taiwan--Peace Forever"?). We waited in the office for close to two hours, got nagged by the officer because we didn't bring the right documents (Can anyone tell me why they insist you bring a 戶籍謄本 instead of a 戶口名簿? Don't you need the latter to get the former?), and were out in a minute and a half.

But at least the fnCs and I had some nice conversations while we waited, so I can't really complain...

Looks like this will be a typhoon weekend

Typhoon Krosa is on its way and looks like it'll be a big one. So I imagine we won't be going out much this weekend. It's just as well. We're exhausted. We finally finished getting all the stuff out of the old apartment, but now our new place is a mess. I keep expecting to come home and find Jupiter Jones setting up shop in the living room. (I probably referenced myself out of an audience with that.)

Well, at least perhaps I can make use of the time by trying to un-muddle chapter four, which is currently 15,000 stream-of-unconsciousness words with no end in sight. Either that or un-muddle the living room. Whatever I end up doing, though, it might have be done by candlelight. And in either case, organization seems to be the biggest challenge. That, and "knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep." (Ha ha! Now you won't get that song out of your heads for weeks!)

Oops...

During our recent move, we unpacked a box of books that contained the Ohio cookbook that ERG's mother had given us five years ago when we were leaving the U.S. to return to Taiwan. Inside the front cover, a nice note from her and an unsigned, un-mailed thank you card....

Never too old to learn...

The former native speaker's four-year-old nephew (we'll call him "the not-yet-native speaker," or nyns, for short) just explained to me why he's not yet bathing himself:

Because little children can't wash behind themselves, they need their mothers to help them wash their backs.

Hmmm... made sense when he said it.

Current events (or why I'm not blogging)

• Health "events" in the family
• Moving and redecorating "events" (and sometimes redecorating "un-events" that should have been "events")
• Dissertation/IRB-related "events"
• An eventful publication process for an article that will come out soon
• Beginning of the semester events
• Recommendation-writing requests from all over (I'm happy to write 'em, but they're still an "event")

More later...

Amen.

A coupla IRB-related links (mostly for my benefit)

Been doing work to apply for IRB review of my research (again--but it's my fault since my 5-year renewable approved whatchamajiggit is expiring soon). In the midst of all that, I've seen two posts that represent different views of the process:

• Using informed consent forms in fieldwork (at Savage Minds)
• To the Historian All Men are Dead (at the Institutional Review Blog)

No time to comment now on them, though. Gotta get back to IRB-ing...

Checking in

Just a note to say that I'm still alive. If you imagine that I have spent the summer thus far productively writing my dissertation, well, you're partly right. It's been an eventful summer, though. (I hasten to add that the events have been mostly good. Or, rather, that most of the events have been good.)

Anyway, I'll check back in again at some point in the future. Meanwhile, you can read this post from Stewgad.

Eric Gardner on contingent faculty

My Ohio University grad. school classmate Eric has an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about part-time labor in U.S. colleges and universities (and in particular, Ohio). It's an issue that probably a lot of people in academia are aware of (particularly in English departments or writing programs), but perhaps people outside of academia aren't as aware. Hopefully Eric's article will open a few eyes.

No wonder hardly anyone reads this blog

Mingle² - Online Dating

Isn't a G rating the kiss of death for a movie? Maybe I need to throw in a few gratuitous expletives, like "Daggone it!" or "Great day in the morning!"

via

Another idea for RSA: Rhetorical Agency for the "Orphan of Asia"

Here's another timely topic for the upcoming Rhetoric Society conference. It's another one I am interested in, but don't have time right now to explore.

Earlier this month, Michael Turton wrote a post about the U.S. government's response to a teleconference between Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian and members of the National Press Club. This teleconference was (predictably) denounced by the PRC, and U.S. government officials avoided the event. According to a Taipei Times article that Turton quotes, "at least one [U.S. State Department] official charg[ed] that Chen's appearance violated the US ban on Taiwanese presidents visiting Washington". Turton comments,

In other words, officials within the US State Department -- thankfully not the whole State Department -- decided to take the exact position that Beijing had advanced: that pixels containing Chen Shui-bian's image should not be allowed to re-assemble themselves on digital screens inside the territory of the United States, especially when accompanied by audio.

The Taipei Times article also notes that no one from the State Department attended the teleconference.

This made me think of a question that Cheryl Geisler noted was raised by Joshua Gunn in a discussion of rhetorical agency at a meeting of the Alliance of Rhetoric Societies: "Under the impact of digital technologies, we have the ability to be in virtual places beyond our physical reach--how does this affect agency?"

The answer in this case seems to be "not a whole lot", but I'd be interested in hearing the views of those who have studied rhetorical agency (particularly in digital environments) in more depth than I have.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it

I was recently reminded that Robert Oliver, author of Communication in Ancient China and India (1971), worked as a publicizer of and ghostwriter for Syngman Rhee, Korea's first (through third) post-WWII president. Oliver wrote quite a few pamphlets and books about Korea and Rhee (Korea's Fight for Freedom, Why War Came in Korea, The Truth about Korea, Syngman Rhee: The Man Behind the Myth, etc.). He also gave a lot of speeches about Korea that have been published in various issues of Vital Speeches of the Day. Rhee, a strong anti-Communist, left office in 1960 after protests regarding the 1960 election and was exiled in Hawai'i.

This got me to thinking about the possible relationships between Oliver's work as a scholar of rhetoric (particularly intercultural rhetoric) and his Cold War-era rhetorical work for Rhee. I haven't seen anyone in the field of rhetoric write about Oliver's work on Korea--no dissertations, book chapters, or even articles. Goodwin Berquist has a little to say about Oliver's Korea period in "The Rhetorical Travels of Robert T. Oliver", but it's not a critical article. Oliver himself mentions his work with Rhee in his memoir The Way It Was--All the Way, but it doesn't appear that anyone else has taken up this topic.

But I don't really have time to work on this topic. So I'm passing it out to whoever wants to work on it, assuming no one has thought of this topic before. If anyone picks it up, I'd be grateful to hear about it. It might make a good paper for the RSA 2008 conference that's focusing on the responsibilities of rhetoric. Might even make a good dissertation topic.

[Update, 6/21/07: There's an article about ghostwriting from the Journal of Business Ethics that mentions Oliver and cites a 1991 book chapter in which Oliver is interviewed. Surprisingly, our library has that book...]

[Korea] [rhetoric] [Robert Oliver] [Syngman Rhee]

CFP: Rhetoric Society of America, 2008

RSA 2008: Call for Proposals

The Responsibilities of Rhetoric

Seattle, the location of RSA 2008, by virtue of its identity and its imagery compels us to meditate together on the macroforces that are currently shaping our discipline and our democracy.

Seattle means coffee and Boeing and the Port--all of them symbols of the international, globalized market economy and its attendant perils. Seattle means Microsoft and Amazon.com --megacorporations produced by and producing new (and sometimes vexing) communications technologies and practices. Seattle means "metronatural" life: REI (Recreation Equipment Inc.) and bicycles, eco-consciousness and the just-launched Puget Sound Partnership, urban spaces surrounded by Elliott Bay and Mt. Rainier--all of it a reminder of ecological challenges that must be negotiated through rhetoric. And Seattle means multiculturalism: the polyglot citizens who gather at Pike Place Market or Starbucks are African American and native American, Anglo and Asian, Latino and mestizo, native and immigrant.

Let us come together in Seattle, therefore, to consider The Responsibilities of Rhetoric. How can the study and practice of rhetoric contribute to social progress? What does rhetoric offer as means of understanding and coping with globalization, particularly at a time when "global" is associated with "terror" and "exploitation"? What do rhetorical studies have to offer in a presidential election year when political discourses and popular fundamentalisms are polarizing, confrontational, divisive? How do new media affect civic participation and the conduct of argument half a century after The New Rhetoric, The Uses of Argument, and The Rhetoric of Motives? How can rhetorical studies contribute to scientific exchange, technology transfer, and risk management--all in the interest of public and disciplinary good, and particularly on environmental issues? In a nation suspicious of difference, concerned with security, and newly armed with snooping technologies, can rhetorical pedagogies nevertheless protect civil liberties, sustain civic cooperation, and promote understanding and identification? And how can our professional society be sure that our scholarly methodologies and assumptions are themselves highly ethical?

While participants are invited to present their current research on all the topics that fall within the domain of rhetorical studies, the Program Committee will especially appreciate proposals that engage with The Responsibilities of Rhetoric.

Proposals for sessions and individual presentations – due by September 15, 2007 – must be submitted electronically: directions will be posted here shortly. There you will also find information (and regular updates) on housing, registration, special features, and other aspects of RSA 2008.

I should probably try to go--my first RSA presentation was in 1998 and my most recent one was in 2002...