Pop Academy

Shame on me. I went more than a month without a post. In my defense, I did spend much of February researching and writing toward my social media pedagogy essay. I still have about 10 days to the deadline for the special journal call I’m working toward. Scrolling through the stacks of my university library, but especially Old Dominion University’s library (which is closer to my neighborhood) brought back amazing #commnerd memories from undergrad and grad school. As much as technology seems to rule my life, the smell of books, old and new, reminds me of the importance of the craft I’ve chosen. Even as more of our research publications are shifted online, or at least accessed via journal databases on a screen, I appreciate the knowledge that I know is collected and cataloged as important works for future #commnerds like myself.

As I’ve referenced the Twitter hashtag #commnerd twice now, let me digress briefly to explain. My department has some AMAZING students that have created a network of social scholarship online. Many of them (you know who you are) tweet encouragement to their peers as they complete their rigorous, life-sucking senior seminar projects, as well as share helpful links and comments. Some also blog about their research experience. However, this online collaboration and reflection has not replaced their more traditional study sessions, only enhanced them. Somewhere along the way, the nickname Comm Nerd caught on and is now a Twitter list, hashtag AND t-shirt. These students rock! I could go on and on about the complexities of the millennials, as shared by my fellow academic bloggers and tweeps since the Pew Center released this and PBS aired Digital Nation. However, I don’t have anything spectacularly different or fresh to offer that hasn’t been addressed by said academics and public intellectuals. What I will say is that these students’ fantastic accomplishments are exhausting! I’m incredibly proud of them and confident they’ll do well in grad school and/or their respective careers. They’ve inspired me to get back to the writing board but it’s been a rough winter.

Teaching is the most rewarding job, yet it’s not a job you leave at the office. My office is also the library, the coffee shop, the interwebs and, especially, my home. I don’t often discuss my home life in my work life, but so much of my home life is consumed talking about my work life. Ouch, I think I sprained by brain on that one. Anyway, my home life that exists on Twitter and Facebook, while I do spend some of it connecting with family and grad school friends, is mostly spent reading links that incorporate my research and pedagogy interests. Hence, when the time comes to just sit down and write about these intersections, I’ve struggled to spend even more time at the computer being quantitatively productive. I use the word quantitatively not because I do empirical social science (because I don’t) but because research productivity for tenure and promotion is mostly concerned with quantifiable, verifiable publications. Sure, I am fortunate to work at a public liberal arts institution that values my teaching first, scholarship second. However, the scope of research and scholarship that I spend so much of my day cultivating via social media is a hybrid approach that I don’t think is quite recognizable as practical pedagogy and research.

And now we’ve come full circle. I’ve spent much of this semester mining through published essays and anthologies on pedagogy and digital/social media as well as feminist and queer theory to work toward publications that bring together my research agenda and pedagogical philosophy. I have half a Moleskin full of handwritten notes because I need to step away from the computer to be able to come back to it and actually be “productive” in the tenure-able capacity. The plan was to hit the writing hard this week during spring break. Instead, I did course prep, my taxes and other more manageable tasks that don’t require accelerated levels of emotional creativity. Why? Because I got a rescue puppy from a local shelter the first weekend of break. We’ve been talking about it for months but wanted to wait till we had time to train and get the pup acclimated to a new environment as best as possible. Since spring break affords that opportunity better than a regular work week, here we are. To others it may appear I’m stalling on the writing. Although this puppy has drained my energy, watching him sleep at my feet as I type this reminds me that there are other immeasurable means of productivity. We saved a puppy’s life. My work will get done. Just not this week.

As I begin week 5 of the semester, the exhaustion of course/conference prep and grading has united with the germs crowding campus to offer me the first cold of the academic year. Despite my abuse of Kleenex and Sudafed, I’ve been able to find joy in the new TV season and my students’ use of Twitter. Regarding the former, I know there is a research project in Fox’s Glee, but I’m holding out until the network has at least picked it up through mid-season. I still have essays on A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila and Mad Men that I need to complete. However, one of the great things about my job (but also a curse) is that I’m never at a loss for new material. I can never simply enjoy a new TV show or film, at least not the mass-market kind. My feminist, queer-theoried brain goes into overdrive before I have to remind myself to relax and do my best to take in the aesthetic pleasure on the screen. For example, does Glee transgress prime-time network representations of gender and sexuality because it highlights straight men as comfortable being associated with a glee club or a cappella group and provides us a supporting young gay male character who is struggling to come out publicly, not to mention that the show’s creator is the openly gay Ryan Murphy, who also brought us the simultaneously homoerotic and homophobic Nip/Tuck? Or does Glee reinforce hegemonic masculinity by comforting straight audiences with tired heteronormative love triangles in not one, but two subplots as well as narrate the pressures on middle-class husbands to provide for their over/under-sexed wives? See? My head is going to explode.The point here is that while i love my job, it’s often hard to find enjoyment in the subject I study. Perhaps that’s why I consume so much TV, film, music, blogs, and magazines–to increase the chance I’ll find something so fabulous that I can’t tear it apart with critical theory. I can dream, can’t I?

This tension presented itself to me in a different way last week when I attended a required workshop on writing intensive courses. About ten faculty from different disciplines on campus convened to swap stories and take notes on how to enhance our courses that expect lots of student writing. I offered advice such as beginning the semester with a small stakes, short essay in which  students can connect course topics to something they enjoy. While the other attendees clearly saw value in this statement and some had already done so in their own courses, one prof pointed out how I have the privilege of teaching something fun, which in turn leads to more student interest than other disciplines.  I won’t deny that I usually enjoy a good academic debate, but I didn’t feel like pushing the issue. Sure, I mostly love what I teach. Even in the drier theory classes I can bring in media and pop culture examples. However, no matter what discipline we teach in, we must strive to keep our content relevant to our students’ daily lives. As much as some would believe otherwise, not every student is led easily to the waterfront that is Twitter or even popular TV. Students have busy lives, just like us, and are selective in their popular culture choices. It takes more time and energy then I could describe with the gusto deserved of it to stay on top of pop culture topics. I don’t consume more than I can handle, but I would bet good money that my brain is just as tired after reading through blogs and news stories about TV, current events and other important topics as it would be prepping a classics lecture, a political science debate or chemistry lab.

The beauty of teaching at a liberal arts institution is that I know I have enough colleagues and students to appreciate the value of what I do as “real” work and not just a good time. On the flipside, this interaction has fueled yet another potential essay (darn it, even my interpersonal interactions are now becoming research topics!) regarding the privileged space of popular culture scholarship. Evidenced by my students’ use of Twitter and blogging, technology and the politics of the popular are indeed lively intellectual endeavors. However, the struggle for academic currency of the popcultural continues. Time to do a bit more course prep before settling in for the Emmys. I’ll likely live tweet the broadcast. *Sigh.