would like to welcome you to our Fall 2012 Introduction to Literature,
film, photography, art, the internet, etcetera etcetera. On this official
page you will find the various laws
of our 21st century undergraduate classroom/nation--here you will become acquainted the with the pesky little gates,
cages, locks, and handcuffs as well as the meager statutes, ordinances,
edicts, and principles that will allow our class to thrive! Let me underscore that you have absolute intellectual freedom
in our land of the Naked Eye/I, BUT to receive that alienable right you must also ascribe to the reasonable responsibilities outlined in this, your
passport, or collection of bylaws. After all, we want to have a blast, evolve/grow/shapeshift into the best
literature/film studies class on the West Coast, even (Santa Cruz and Stanford be damned)! But to do that,
we need some peace and quiet--a safe asylum within which to forge our imagination, to amp our madness-obsessed minds. So,
then, when you walk into our huge, lecture hall, GMCS 333, aka The Eyemagination Lab, here are some
of the ground rules:
Passport Rule #1 Punish your Eyes!
When you enter this room for class you will have finished the reading
that appears on the day-to-day class calendar! Coming to a university
literature/film/cultural studies class without doing the reading is
like a gardener trying to raise roses without getting her/his hands
filthy with shit, a surgeon trying to operate without a scalpel, a
fireman without an ax, a voyeur without a telescope, a prostitute without a, er, well, I better stop
there....
Do the readings. Do them twice if you can MAKE the
time!
I know, you are saying to yourself, "they don't make me read in
my other classes" or some other sort of nonsense... well here, you
must!
Please think twice about joining us if you have not finished the
readings--the quality of our class depends upon your dedicated work and
your relentless and independent curiosity. Without your periodic
intellectual donations, the class is likely to evolve into a boring,
even painful waste of time.
Passport Rule #2 Be a Luddite!
When you come to class you will leave your digital otherself, your social media robot/mirror/proxy, aka YOUR COMPUTER, off! Your laptop, ipad, tablet, etc will be asleep IN YOUR BAGS during class--or, better yet,
resting in your dorm room or apartment. Why!? Does your aging professor have a thing against technology!? Is he mad!??? Insane? An idiot?
Maybe all of the above. Actually, the reason is simple... Have you noticed how anytime a
student uses a laptop in an auditorium there is a "cone of distraction"
alongside and behind the student using a computer? Take a look at this university lecture hall:
This is usually due
to said student surfing the web via wi-fi perusing erotic delights or
god knows what. I was recently at a cool (ok, it was slightly boring, I
confess) lecture by a noted writer--as I tried to listen to her,
in front of me, a diverted student, there, no doubt for extra-credit,
was perusing sites like this one (nsfw or school). So, laptops are GREAT
for entering your notes AFTER class, but they will not be allowed to be on in
our lecture hall. If you have an issue with this, schedule a
meeting with me during office hours the first week of class. Don't end
up like this former student from another Engl 220 I taught back in the
day (to your left) who was using their iPad under the table during seminar!
Passport Rule #3 Smartphones OFF!!!
Your beloved magnificent iphone, your cherished blackberry, your
fetishized razr, your primordial pager will be off, off, OFF; if for
some reason you are expecting an emergency call, set it on VIBRATE (for
privacy, pleasure, or both!) and sit in the back near an exit after
letting me know before class beguns that you are expecting an emergency
phonecall.
Cellphones KILL collective spaces of learning with their
ill-timed, annoying clattering rings, bongs, squeaks, chirps, and
buzzings. Yes, the trauma of that delayed text, Yes, the horror of that
missed hook-up call, will no doubt send you to years and years on an
analyst's couch, but we, the rest of us, will gain some silence, a kind
of sanctuary without which ideas wither on the vine.
Passport Rule #4
Plagiarism is the Kidnapping of Ideas!
PLAGIARISM is for cads, thieves, and idiots who desire an "F" for the
class. Plagiarism comes from the Latin word, "plagiarius" which means
kidnapper, plunderer, or (get this!) thief--not a GOOD thing. In the
university, plagiarism refers to the art and crime of presenting other
people's work under your own signature, or cutting and pasting copied crap
from wikipedia--definitely a BAD thing. While your professor is
forbidden by CSU/SDSU code from tattooing the word LOSER on the
foreheads of guilty students, he can promise that felonious students
will be remanded to the state-authorized SDSU executioners. Read
THIS as well--SDSU is dead SERIOUS about this, so don't take any
chances! Rely on your own mind and your own imagination!