Blogging’s taken academia by the storm, sort of. Went to the (dis)junctions 2006: lost in translation humanities conference at UC Riverside today, and 2 of the 3 papers in the panel I was presenting in was about blogs! (left: UCR arts building)
The panel title: “Women & War.” Nadine from U of Arkansas talked about Baghdad Burning, and Stacy from CSU San marcos about Cindy Sheehan’s blogging.
Weirdly, I was the odd girl out, with my presentation titled “Rikki Ducornet’s Poetry: The Surreality of War.” Back in the day, writers had to be dead a while before they were considered worthy of academic research. Now papers about still-living authors — Rikki’s v. much alive — are getting old-fashioned :P
Well, not really. I s’pose Don Quixote, which I’m finally reading now, will always be in style :) Don’t let its uber-long-ness discourage you! It’s super funny. (right: flyer posted on a UCR bulletin board)
And Rikki’s poetry still seems very current too…
Fresh blood ripe cherries
The park is green hanged man’s tongue
The streets are full
A lung a heart, a severed fist.
– from “Ripe Cherries,” in From the Star Chamber by Rikki Ducornet.
Looks like I’m going to have to look up Rikki Ducornet at the library, now. You going to post your paper up anywhere?
Comment by NC — April 8, 2006 @ 5:57 pm
Well, it seems like LAPL doesn’t have From the Star Chamber, so I put a hold on a collection of short stories instead. And you finally convinced me to go check out Baghdad Burning. I can’t believe I hadn’t been there before today.
Comment by NC — April 8, 2006 @ 6:13 pm
Sadly, a lot of Rikki’s poetry’s now out of print. She’s really better known as a novelist though — I especially like The Stain and Gazelle…
Comment by Siel — April 9, 2006 @ 10:56 am
I’m pro-Rikki, but I’ll admit to being anti-Miguel. *DQ* is hilarious for the first hundred pages, and the dream sequence is Important (and good), but the rest is so repetitive that I want to gouge my eyes out every time I teach it. Which, luckily, I haven’t had to do that often.
Comment by meg — April 9, 2006 @ 11:01 am
heh. I was a grad. student at UCR. yay for disjunctions!
Comment by morganlf — April 9, 2006 @ 7:42 pm
Wait — I’m on page 270, and it’s still hilar! Dorothea’s a funny gal –
Comment by Siel — April 14, 2006 @ 10:56 am