I read ahead of the class over Christmas break and was doing pretty well, but then the books started catching up with me and now I'm dead even. I didn't even have time to finish one of the three novels due last week. D'oh! I have three other classes on top of that one, and while there isn't the quantity of reading that there is for that first class, what I do have to read is infinitely more difficult to obsorb. I present to you Exhibit A, from a journal article I read a few days ago:
"The notion of social responsibility has long been at the center of the professional ideology that grounds thought and justifies practice in librarianship. And it is an essentially contested concept. Its meaning is central to professional identity, yet that meaning is historically and politically contingent, like the notion of professionalism itself. During times of 'normal practice', professional ideology can remain peacefully embedded within practice, going unrevealed and unexamined. However, given librarianship's close ties with the terms of discourse that generally articulate the legitimacy of American democratic culture, when the latter experiences a crisis of meaning, so does the former."
Say what?? This article went on for TWENTY-FOUR SINGLE-SPACED PAGES. And considering I have to read every sentence approximately forty-seven times to understand what it's saying, it takes a fair chunk of my time to make my way through my weekly reading. Fortunately, the kinds of classes that present sweeping overviews of the profession and all the philosophy and ideology inherent within should be finished by the end of the summer. At that point I'll be delving into the youth services classes that I'm really looking forward to.
I do have two classes that I really enjoy this semester. The first is my Storytelling class. Now if you're anything like I was, you probably think I'm taking a class on how to read story books to little kids. I'm not. The class I'm taking centers around storytelling as an art form for all ages. My professor has been a professional storytelling for 37 years, traveling all over the world for various festivals, conventions, and to tell at schools, libraries, and performing arts venues. He has a revolving repetoir of around 400 stories and 150 folk ballads at any given time. He is fascinating. A good number of the stories he tells are actually for adults and would be completely inappropriate for children in that the concepts in the stories are too sophisticated, confusing, or scary for that audience. Think of taking a whole class about "The Moth" and "This American Life"--that's what this class is like. I love love love it. And I'm going to be telling a story in public this April at U of I's Storytelling Festival as part of the requirements of the class. Should be interesting! I know some people are deathly afraid of public speaking, but while it does make me a bit nervous, I'm actually pretty ok with it.
The other class I really enjoy this semester is my Young Adult Literature and Resources class. That would be the class requiring me to read the 35 novels in sixteen weeks, i.e. the photo above. Though the reading often takes awhile just because of the sheer volume of it, it's almost all enjoyable and interesting. I've always loved YA literature. The themes present in those books: identity, intelligence, intimacy, independence, and integrity (also known as The Five "I"s of YA Lit) are themes that are present in much great adult literature as well, but they are placed in an often drama-filled context in YA lit that rarely fails to suck me in. The class is basically run like a big book club and we've taken a look at some interesting teen films as well, the latest being the documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys" which is about how the skateboard culture rose up in the 70s and 80s. I highly recommend it. If you still have any doubts about the merit of YA books to adults, I would suggest checking out the "Hunger Games" series by Suzanne Collins. So far only the first two books of the trilogy have been released (the third is coming out this summer) and they are some of the best books I've read in years. They take place in the future and have a sort-of "1984" feel to them, and they are the kind of books that you literally cannot put down until you have read them cover to cover. The first one took me about eight hours. The second around ten hours. I loved every minute.
So, I apologize for being m.i.a. as of late, but I'm going to make a concerted effort to keep this blog in shape. Check back soon for more updates. Later, dudes.
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