As so often happens, I began this reading with great admiration for the poem and ended more than a little awestruck by it.

Some thoughts on that awe. A successful or at least meaningful performance demands commitment, in time; a committed process or a process of commitment, in other words. And from that commitment, vital meanings emerge. So meaning both precedes and follows from commitment. Commitment is exclusive, true: this, not that emphasis; this, not that timing; this, not that commentary. That exclusivity forces decisions, and decisions help to make or discover meaning (or both). (“Reason also is choice,” writes Milton.) At the same time, commitment can lead to a heightened awareness not so much of multiple meanings as of multiple nodes of meaning within the overall semantic shape or experience of the whole, and the way the modes connect to each other. Commitment demands connections, unless the commitment is completely random and blundering. Perhaps even then.

I’m aware I’m describing another version of the hermeneutic circle here: you can’t understand the whole unless you understand the parts, but you can’t understand the parts unless you understand the whole. Here’s the distinction, though, at least to my mind today: apprehension precedes comprehension, and commitment is the connection between them. There’s not a bottomless pit of ambiguity, nor is there a fierce conviction of one single interpretation, as a result of this commitment. Rather, there is a readiness, and an occasion of answerability, a time when I am called upon (by myself, in this case, but also by the presence of my teachers and mentors whom I have internalized) to give an account of the ongoing work of this poem.

That its work is ongoing I have no doubt.

Postscript: A Donne a Day 25 will be another take of the poem and commentary. Unfortunately, the quality of the recording is not as good: I thought I was using my Snowball USB mike, but in fact I was using the built-in mike on the tablet PC. You’ll hear lots of room tone, and not as clear or intelligible a recording of my voice. Still, the contrast, and the value of the initial take, are potentially interesting enough to warrant the duplication.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.1MB)

Strange headline–I’m irresistibly reminded of Blue Oyster Cult, even if I can’t get the proper diacritical mark there–but an interesting article in the Chronicle nonetheless. Rebecca Goetz writes a thoughtful, even temperate essay on her own experience as a grad-school blogger, offering evidence of its personal and professional value in her studies, and challenging the current backlash-assumption that blogging is dangerous to one’s career. She cites the earlier, pseudonymous “Ivan Tribble” essays in the Chronicle, and shares the “metablogging” questions and answers that emerged for her as she considered “Tribble”‘s arguments.

I’m not naive enough to think that masking and the ultra-careful control of information don’t play a large role in academic success, but I am stubborn enough to think it shouldn’t be that way. Higher education in particular has the responsibility to demonstrate to the world that there’s a better way. Irony doesn’t begin to describe the current situation, though, in which we urge our students to find their voices and spend most of our time manipulating our own. Perhaps this is the sour result of Foucault’s argument that all discourse is merely the circulation of power. I don’t believe that’s true, myself, but if it is, who could be blamed for turning to concealed weapons? And what could be more disruptive than the blogosphere?

Unless the blogosphere itself is nothing more than the latest instance of discourse as the circulation of power, as some (not all) students of social network analysis believe. I don’t believe that myself, not because I don’t believe the blogosphere cannot become a Foucaultian power exchange, or that power circulation doesn’t characterize some of the blogosphere already, but because I don’t believe such a thing is inevitable.

Rebecca says it’s a great time to be an academic blogger. I agree. And that greatness is our shared responsibility.

They’re coming thick and fast now. Yesterday’s student presentation in our Donne seminar focused on the tradition of erotic theology as it is manifested in Donne’s work, especially his sacred poetry. Holy Sonnet 14 (“Batter my heart, three-personed God”) occupied a great deal of our attention, but Holy Sonnet 18 (“Show me thy spouse, dear Christ”) also had its provocations, some of them even deeper than those occasioned by Holy Sonnet 14.

Mulling over the presentation, discussion, and poem on the way to work today, I found some ideas emerging. I was inspired to do my first first-thing-in-the-morning podcast. (For the curious, I was aided by the fact I had brought my new Snowball USB microphone into the office for use later in the day on another project. I used that mike for yesterday’s podcast as well. Cardioid pattern, -10db pad.) And as is often the case, I had what I think is my best idea just as I was getting ready to commit to a reading. The thought of hanging on the morrow concentrates the mind wonderfully, Sam Johnson observed; I’d say that the thought of podcasting in a few moments also focuses the mind. At least it did mine.

Have patience. My commentary eventually arrives at the topic for consideration: how to scale transformative intimacy. A question all religions must confront. And a question all educators must confront as well.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.1MB)

A dark epiphany at lunch today. I hope it’s an example of lifelong learning.

The audio isn’t as polished as usual. Perhaps that’s apt. I wanted the iron-fresh odor before it dissipated, so I rushed the recording. But not the reading.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.9MB)

Spring 2006 will see the rollout of another campus-wide podcasting project: Chargercasts, at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Timothy McDaniel, podcasting director at UAH, calls podcasting “easy, flexible, and infinite.” (What more could one want out of an educational resource?) It’s also a way to get a campus radio station when the FCC says they can’t grant you a license. The student-run, student-funded angle is especially intriguing.

More details on the Chargercast project in the Huntsville Times article. I confess I am tickled to see Adam Curry’s “Daily Source Code” called the “Daily Secret Code.” Serves me right for leaving my decoder ring at home on the nightstand.

Via Podcasting News.

One of my favorite Donne poems, and unfortunately one of his toughest. This lyric is thus a rather severe test case for my assertion that reading aloud can help elucidate poetry. Don’t judge my thesis just by my reading, though. Do me one Donne better!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.0MB)

Matt May at Corante reports that “podcasting paraphernalia” (a word spell-checkers were born to flag) are starting to aggregate in interesting ways. I mean dangerous ways, of course, in my own case, seeing as how Guitar Center/Musician’s Friend, already a source of major podcasting goodness for me, now has kits for sale to ease the way into wholesale addiction, I mean devotion.

Market economies: sometimes they pull through. I hope my own spending has in some small way contributed to this encouraging development (tongue firmly planted in cheek, or maybe not).

This may be a perfect poem.

If it’s not perfect, it’s close.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.4MB)

Brian caught me in full polemical vigor in Orlando, so here’s my poor recompense. Despite his serious and well-founded reservations about this faux-New-Orleans (and corporate-rights-managed) bash at EDUCAUSE, Brian could not say no to his fans and friends (they are legion) and agreed to come with us to the party. Amor vincit omnia! Thanks, Brian. You bring good things to life, and that truth belongs to our community, not to any corporation.

Welcome back to the A Donne A Day podcasts. Actually, that’s for me: you didn’t go anywhere, but I got buried under the Term Avalanche. With some inspiration from EDUCAUSE, though, and with particular inspiration from a very interesting moment toward the end of my Donne seminar yesterday, I went home last night and recorded this podcast. It’s my reading of “Meditation 17” from Donne’s Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, a prose work Donne wrote during a near-fatal illness late in his life. “Meditation 17” is the most famous selection from this work. You’ll recognize one part of it immediately.

In my class, though, I emphasized another part, one that I find even stranger and more powerful than the well-known “no man is an island.” My commentary after the reading specifies that part, explains a little of what I believe it means, and talks about my teacherly tactics as I sought to enable a light-bulb moment in the waning moments of the class period.

I hope you enjoy the podcast. The time is drawing near for my students to do their own Donne podcasts, so I guess I better get my act together and get some more of my own out there.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.3MB)