At this point I was convinced he wanted something from me, but I looked up from my book, and into his eyes for the first time, and we began to talk. It went very nearly like this.

I said, “Well, it’s actually not my normal fare. I mean, it’s good writing, but the story—”
“What’s your normal stuff, then? What you usually read.”
“Science fiction. Lots and lots of science fiction.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that? Like, what kind of books? Which ones?”
“Well, have you ever read the Dune series, by Frank Herbert?”
“I’m not sure. Yeah, I think so. I think I did.” (Here I could not quell my smile.)
“Check it out. I guarantee it’ll treat you well.”

We were above ground by this point, and discovered to our mutual pleasure that we were serendipitously walking in the same direction. (West on Girard Ave from Broad St., for those interested.) Something else was said, and I asked him where he went to school. He lifted up his jacket, which he wore unzipped, and showed me the emblem on his shirt.

“HOPE. It’s a charter school.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”
“Man, it sucks there. It’s a terrible school. I got all As and Bs, but it’s not hard. I’m in the highest grade—well, not the highest grade—I’m in ten—but they just go over the same stuff all the time. For everybody else, it’s like they don’t get it or something. Maybe it’s because most of them smoke weed.”

Yes, there’s likely an association there, I said. I told him to stick to his studies. I started in talking about work—I’m that person, all of a sudden—and gave him some stories about adults I know who have spent too much time with drugs and regretted it, and are only now going back to get a GED, at 35 or 45. That seemed to validate his perspective, and he smiled at me.

I said, “Don’t ever stop learning. When I was little, I read a lot. My mom worked a lot when I was little, so I would read. She’d come home, pretty tired, of course, and I’d ask her about some words. I wanted to know what they meant. Every time, she told me the same thing: ‘Look it up!’ Every time!”
“She wouldn’t tell you? Really?”
“Yeah. But she was right, because now I feel like the only mistake I haven’t made is being sure that everything—that thing over there, or this, whatever—is learnable. I can learn that. I can learn this. You know?”
“Yeah. Sometimes, like if I’m at the library or something, I like to sit there and just think. I don’t always read, sometimes I just listen to music and think.”
“It seems to me that very many people are terrified of situations where all they can do is think. Sometimes people structure their life in activities so that they don’t have to think, and when they’re confronted with a situation where thinking is all they can do, they get scared. No one personality flaw hinders a person more than this, but everybody has it! It’s just a matter of when you shed it. I don’t know, but it seems to me like maybe you shed it a while ago.”

It was around this time that we’d reached an intersection where he needed to turn, and he asked for my “card.” I laughed and said that I had none, but that I’d happily share my email address with him. I did so, and he thanked me. He said he knew someone with my name who went to another high school in Philadelphia. I said I thought that was cool.

This is pretty much the only course I’ve ever taken where the class size is too large to have an active discussion. It’s in a lecture hall with stadium-style seating, and class participation (and attendance) is measured by clicking a button on an RF remote which is linked to one’s student ID number. The prof periodically throws out questions in his presentation, and by submitting an answer with your remote, you verify that you attended the class. Not exactly foolproof, right? But that’s not the subject of this post.

Let me stress that I know very little about the hard sciences. It’s just something I never really cracked a book on, and it’s a hit to my pride that I’m so weak in this area. Nonetheless, I have skills to avail me!

Today, the professor tossed up this question on the presentation, and we had to vote for what we thought the correct answer:

When an air bag deploys, what actually happens?

1. Air is pushed into the bag from the outside of the car.
2. It’s not actually air, but a liquid that fills the bag.
3. A chemical reaction forms a gas.
4. Gas is already present and expands in the bag.

Now, knowing absolutely nothing about the subject matter, but knowing on pretty solid ground that I’m attending a chemistry class, which answer am I likely to pick? Probably the one that says chemical reaction in it!

This is particularly surprising to me, because the prof’s questions aren’t always so remedial. Take, for example, this answer set to a prompt about why an unopened soda can expands on a hot day:

1. The expansion is due to the decreased solubility of CO₂ (g) in water at higher temp, so the dissolution of CO₂ (g) is exothermic.
2. Energy is always required to dissolve a solute molecule in water, because to do so requires the breaking of hydrogen bonds within the water.
3. The dissolution of a gas into a liquid corresponds to an isothermal compression of the gas.

Not the most taxing exercise, but it’s also not insultingly obvious: all the options have very chemistryish jargon in them.

I’ll add that I’m well aware that the choices in the first example all somehow relate to chemistry, but I’m focused much more here on the reasonableness in the design of the answer choices. I wonder whether being a professor myself will give me more insight on this matter, or just numb me to being disinterested in it myself.

The list of candidates ran as follows. Already I have a pretty good idea who will be appointed.

The Culture and Communication Department will be bringing in three candidates for the faculty position of Assistant Professor of Anthropology.

Please join us for their research presentations.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Brent Luvaas will be on campus on January 30, 2009

His research presentation will be from 3:00-4:00 in Room 114. The title of his presentation is “Globalization Goes DIY: The Politics of Place in Indonesian Indie Music”

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Janet Alexanian will be on campus on February 5, 2009.

Her research seminar will be from 3:00-4:00 in Room 114. The title of her presentation is “Contested Visions: Cultural Politics and Anxiety in Post-Revolutionary Iran”

Monday, February 16, 2009

Stephanie Sadre-Orafai will be on campus on February 16, 2009.

Her research seminar will be from 2:30-3:30 in Room 114. The title of her presentation is “Casting as Practice, Casting as Metaphor: Rethinking Media and Multiculturalism in the New York Fashion Industry”

Unfortunately, I’ve already decided I won’t be attending any of these sessions, as a professor (of sociology–damn!) who’s rather dear to me teaches a class at all the prescribed times.

Naturally, I’d love to meet these people and feel them out for teaching talent, but I think that this Dr. Luvaas has the position in the bag. Applying for a position at a university with an already booming Music Industry major and a rapidly expanding Media Studies division in Communication and giving a presentation on globalization, politics, social space, and indie music, and located in a classically hip anthropological place, is smart.

And before you say that it might just be mere coincidence that his topic so uniquely suits our university’s tastes, I submit to you that the chap has a rather broad swath of ethnomusicality credit to his name. Also, it appears that his dissertation was chaired by Sherry Ortner, which would definitely spruce up the pedigree around here. (Ortner, though quite a figure herself, studied with Geertz at the U of C.)

The department here already has a solid assortment of females as assistant professors (they outnumber males, actually), so I can’t even see a female hire out of motivation for political correctness or diversity mandates keeping him away.

Sorry I won’t be around to take classes with the guy.