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In my head: Don’t forget to type up the minutes from the last Little theatre meeting, and also, get started on the Female Biography Project revisions. And DON’T forget to read more Gooseberry Garden and Poetry Rally posts today, and DON’T forget to go over “Fiddler” script!

In my cup: Green tea with nothing in it.

Currently Playing: “Fiddler on the Roof” soundtrack

Daily Run: 2.5 miles @ 10:30 mile pace this morning – still worried about the whole being sick/getting sicker thing.

On the Desk: The Mighty Knights, course lecture notes, and Female Biography Project revisions. And minutes from the last meeting.

On the Nightstand: “Fiddler on the Roof” script, “The Iliad” and “Canterbury Tales”.

BPal of the day: Paladin

PALADIN
Immaculate white musk, sweet frankincense, bourbon vanilla, white leather, and shining armor.
.roll the dice.
.view cart / check out.

It sounds very masculine, but it’s not; it’s a pretty unisex scent, strong and clear and spicy, but not overpowering.

For me, today was one of those days when you feel glad to be who you are, doing what you do, the way that you do it.

It all started with my Harry Potter class, when I showed them how allusions sets were to be done, and then explained the conventions of a novel as compared to other forms of literature. (I have come to the conclusion that we as teachers really assume too much about what students do and do not know. ) I was right, and rewarded when several of my students thanked me after class because they actually had no idea what it meant to call a book a “novel” and did not know that “fiction” could mean anything that doesn’t fall under the category of “nonfiction” and is not limited to novels. Also, they did not understand that “nonfiction” wasn’t a specific kind of book, but rather a category in which many different genres were located. Now, they realize that all “novels” are “books” (epubbed or otherwise), but all “books” are not “novels”, and that “nonfiction” comprises a multitude of literary genres – biography, autobiography, true crime, reference, memoir, and so forth – and I feel really good that I was able to help them in such a basic and tangible fashion.

Then, in my Bible and Literature class, I explained polytheistic versus monotheistic religions, the difference between gods and God, and the foundations and similarities and differences between Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and then Catholicism and Protestantism. We then went over the differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament, discussed their significance and importance (or lack thereof) in the three major monotheistic religions, and explored the idea of there being different types of texts in the Bible and also their origins and the role of St. Jerome and the Vulgate in our western Bible. And even the students who classify themselves as being “religious” found the whole class revelatory. Because whether we like it or not, our culture is founded on this stuff – and whether we like it or not, in general our society doesn’t do a very good job of explaining all of this to our youth – resulting in tons of questions they want to ask and don’t about religion and the Bible. Basic questions, like what IS it, really. It’s gratifying to be the one to clear up that confusion and pave the way for an academic understanding of the thing.

And THEN, in Epic Lit, we discussed epic conventions and the epic hero. And again, apparently I was single-handedly responsible for clearing up major confusion for most of them – like, what an epic actually was.

And then, I checked my email and found that my latest abstract has been accepted for a new volume of essays, this one on medievalism and the Neopagan community. I get to write an article on King Arthur and the tarot! Here’s my proposal:

Propaganda to Product:

The Evolution of Arthur From Political to Commercial Tool in Neo-pagan Marketing

King Arthur was first developed and codified as a symbolic figurehead for an emergent British nation by Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1136. The trajectory of the Arthurian legend is easily traceable from one subsequent era and geographic region to the next in terms of its evolution both as a propagandist and populist tool employed by writers in a variety of socio-political contexts. Most recently, however, the figure of the Christian King Arthur has undergone an interesting shift rendering him symbolic of a quasi-historical, Celtic spiritual past that is in stark contradiction with the political and cultural past over which he has traditionally reigned. In the Neo-pagan tradition, Arthur represents not an ideal king in the political sense but an ideal man in search of perfected being, and the Grail Quest is re-visioned outside of its Christian origins as a path to individual enlightenment and consciousness. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Arthurian tarot decks issued by Anna-Marie Ferguson (Llewellyn 1997), Caitlin and John Matthews (Connections 2007; re-appropriated from the Hallowquest deck) and John Matthews’ Grail Tarot (St. Martin’s Press 2007). Eschewing traditional tarot illustration and figures in favor of ones aligned with a Celtic Arthur developed in the mid-twentieth century with the work of psychologist Carl Jung and Arthurian scholars Jessie L. Weston and Roger Sherman Loomis – figures who, themselves, are documented as being influential for the thinking of the founders of the modern Neo-pagan traditions — these decks re-appropriate Arthur and the figures and symbols of his legend as a marketing tool aimed at Neo-pagan and Wiccan devotees whose particular interests lie along the Celtic Neo-pagan ideologies first cultivated by earlier practitioners of their faiths. In this fashion, the simultaneous waning of Arthur as a popular mythos for good government, and waxing of Arthur as symbol of an unattainable and unrealistic goal for the idealistic, is rendered concretely visible. In the 21st century Arthur is no longer a central ideal in political or even socio-cultural terms – a role he played as recently as JFK’s administration in the mid-20th century – but instead, he is representative of the modern, commercial trend to appropriation of the medieval and its transformation into products designed to appeal specifically to select groups often viewed as marginalized by western society. This essay will provide a comprehensive study of this particular shift in audience reception of the Matter of Britain, with specific attention paid first to examination and analysis of the arrangement and illustration of the decks, themselves, and second, to how Arthur is presented for the Neo-pagan community in juxtaposition with his medieval origins. In addition, it will explore Neo-pagan reception of the medieval and the specific role of tarot in shaping and propagating Neo-pagan medievalism.

This is my newest research and publishing adventure concerning scholarship directly related to subject matter presented in my classes. Here, I have taken the historical and cultural material related to King Arthur and the Arthurian legend which I teach to our students and applied it to an analysis of modern (predominantly American) marketing of that material to generally marginalized social groups that align themselves with modern practices of medieval traditions, with the aim of showing both how marginalized social groups can be vulnerable to target marketing and also how culturally and historically relevant material is constantly recycled in modern society to accommodate a wide range of purposes and ideologies. This demonstrates how what I am teaching has real-world applicable value and the relevance of the studies we offer  to helping students understand how the cultural and literary past informs their present in myriad ways.

And, there you go. A whole day of examples of the many reasons why I love my job and the work I do for it.

And tomorrow, I get to wake up and do it AGAIN. :o )