Alex Kudera's Blog, page 148
January 17, 2012
Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense
In the middle of my insomnia, I stumbled upon an informal but engaging review called "Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense" and written by Black Man in the Cosmos. With candor, wit, and self-criticism, the writer considers both Fight for Your Long Day and Professor X's In the Basement of the Ivory Tower. The reviewer, a doctoral candidate at CUNY writing his dissertation on African American academic novels, is fair to both books and lets his wit shine through in a section on plagiarism. Here's an excerpt that I enjoyed:
17. One thing I liked about Fight For Your Long Day is that it feels very much like a 21st century novel. Kudera depicts a world of higher education where the aspirations of learning and self-improvement still exist, but they exist alongside a world full of the crass, crude, and pornographic, a world that militates against contemplation and learning, a world where everything from violence to paranoia to frivolous pop culture is filtered through the interactive screens that nearly all of the students carry around with them everywhere they go. The book is full of allusions to current events, politics and pop culture, and is probably oversaturated with too many references, but even in that sense it feels familiar.
I didn't like the fact that the book had thinly drawn secondary characters. But then again, thinly drawn characterizations are sometimes all we are able to get from our students when they are being throttled through the higher education assembly line [italics mine]. I went to a small liberal arts college where I knew my professors and they became mentors. I went back to attend a retirement celebration for one of them last year. I haven't seen any of the students I taught in my courses since the classes ended, and barely saw them outside of class when they were enrolled.
He numbers his sections of the review, and I also particularly recommend 9 through 12 on plagiarism, influence, and giving credit where credit is due. According to the blogger, this review was also printed in the GC Advocate, a CUNY online publication, but I could not find the September, 2011 issue online.
17. One thing I liked about Fight For Your Long Day is that it feels very much like a 21st century novel. Kudera depicts a world of higher education where the aspirations of learning and self-improvement still exist, but they exist alongside a world full of the crass, crude, and pornographic, a world that militates against contemplation and learning, a world where everything from violence to paranoia to frivolous pop culture is filtered through the interactive screens that nearly all of the students carry around with them everywhere they go. The book is full of allusions to current events, politics and pop culture, and is probably oversaturated with too many references, but even in that sense it feels familiar.
I didn't like the fact that the book had thinly drawn secondary characters. But then again, thinly drawn characterizations are sometimes all we are able to get from our students when they are being throttled through the higher education assembly line [italics mine]. I went to a small liberal arts college where I knew my professors and they became mentors. I went back to attend a retirement celebration for one of them last year. I haven't seen any of the students I taught in my courses since the classes ended, and barely saw them outside of class when they were enrolled.
He numbers his sections of the review, and I also particularly recommend 9 through 12 on plagiarism, influence, and giving credit where credit is due. According to the blogger, this review was also printed in the GC Advocate, a CUNY online publication, but I could not find the September, 2011 issue online.
January 11, 2012
Psychology Today
Dr. Susan K. Perry at Psychology Today was kind enough to grant me this interview, and while I didn't have opportunity to explore all of my doubts and inadequacies, I did get that cathartic feeling when I sent my responses back. She's an accomplished writer currently shopping her own quirky novel. Also, the writer Michael Leone reviewed
Fight for Your Long Day
at When Falls the Coliseum. Thank you, both!
December 23, 2011
live at Moonstone Arts Center
Abeer Hoque, Alex Kudera, and Don Riggs will read poetry and fiction at Moonstone Arts Center, 110A S. 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA, on Friday, January 6 at 7 p.m.
This event promises to be bigger than playoff football, or at least more affordable. Expect a few ounces of wine and a morsel of cheese, and that parched and annoyed feeling if you arrive a few minutes late and all the little plastic cups are gone.
Abeer Hoque is a Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer with BS and MA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in writing from the University of San Francisco. She is the recipient of a 2005 Tanenbaum Award, a 2007 Fulbright Scholarship, and a 2012 NEA Literature Fellowship, and she has attended residencies at Saltonstall, VCCA, Millay, and Albee. Her writing and photography has been published in ZYZZYVA, XConnect, Nerve.com, Farafina (Nigeria), India Today, the Daily Star (Bangladesh), 580 Split, Wasafiri (England), and KQED Writers Block among others. She likes looking at gargoyles, eating at King's Wok, and watching you dance. Philadelphia was her first home in America. See more at olivewitch.com. Alex Kudera received his M.A. in fiction from Temple University in 1998. His debut novel, Fight for Your Long Day, won the 2011 Independent Publisher's Gold Medal for Best Fiction from the Mid-Atlantic Region. It is an original academic tragicomedy told consistently from the perspective of the adjunct instructor, and reviews and interviews can be found online at Inside Higher Ed, Academe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other locations. Many of Kudera's stories survive in slush piles across the continent or huddled together in unheated North Philly storage space, but The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity is available as a 99-cent single wherever e-books are downloaded. Alex currently teaches writing and literature at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Don Riggs received his M.A. in poetry in 1997, after already having completed a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from University of North Carolina. He has published several articles in the Journal for the Fantastic in the Arts, and is actively engaged in research and teaching in Science Fiction literature. His poetry has appeared in many publications, including 16th Century Journal, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Painted Bride Quarterly, xib and ixnay. He is the Co-Editor of and featured poet in the book Uncommonplaces: Poems of the Fantastic. He is the Editor of Lamont B. Steptoe's A Long Movie of Shadows and translated Chinese Poetic Writing by Francois Cheng. At Drexel, Dr. Riggs teaches several courses for the Department of English and Philosophy, including Science Fiction Literature, Philosophy in Literature, Renaissance and Enlightenment Literature, Creative Writing, Visions in Writing, and Freshman Writing.
This event promises to be bigger than playoff football, or at least more affordable. Expect a few ounces of wine and a morsel of cheese, and that parched and annoyed feeling if you arrive a few minutes late and all the little plastic cups are gone.
Abeer Hoque is a Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer with BS and MA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in writing from the University of San Francisco. She is the recipient of a 2005 Tanenbaum Award, a 2007 Fulbright Scholarship, and a 2012 NEA Literature Fellowship, and she has attended residencies at Saltonstall, VCCA, Millay, and Albee. Her writing and photography has been published in ZYZZYVA, XConnect, Nerve.com, Farafina (Nigeria), India Today, the Daily Star (Bangladesh), 580 Split, Wasafiri (England), and KQED Writers Block among others. She likes looking at gargoyles, eating at King's Wok, and watching you dance. Philadelphia was her first home in America. See more at olivewitch.com. Alex Kudera received his M.A. in fiction from Temple University in 1998. His debut novel, Fight for Your Long Day, won the 2011 Independent Publisher's Gold Medal for Best Fiction from the Mid-Atlantic Region. It is an original academic tragicomedy told consistently from the perspective of the adjunct instructor, and reviews and interviews can be found online at Inside Higher Ed, Academe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other locations. Many of Kudera's stories survive in slush piles across the continent or huddled together in unheated North Philly storage space, but The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity is available as a 99-cent single wherever e-books are downloaded. Alex currently teaches writing and literature at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Don Riggs received his M.A. in poetry in 1997, after already having completed a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from University of North Carolina. He has published several articles in the Journal for the Fantastic in the Arts, and is actively engaged in research and teaching in Science Fiction literature. His poetry has appeared in many publications, including 16th Century Journal, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Painted Bride Quarterly, xib and ixnay. He is the Co-Editor of and featured poet in the book Uncommonplaces: Poems of the Fantastic. He is the Editor of Lamont B. Steptoe's A Long Movie of Shadows and translated Chinese Poetic Writing by Francois Cheng. At Drexel, Dr. Riggs teaches several courses for the Department of English and Philosophy, including Science Fiction Literature, Philosophy in Literature, Renaissance and Enlightenment Literature, Creative Writing, Visions in Writing, and Freshman Writing.
December 19, 2011
devalued content
If you, or anyone you know, becomes burdened with the gift of an electronic reading device this holiday season, you're welcome to take a crack at this sizzling e-single, my only publication of 2011 (or at least the only one that folks are invited to pay for). In Australia, a guy I don't know compares it to The Brothers Karamazov, and, well, even though it's only thirty-five pages, I hope that means it could be worth 99 cents. Try here for kindle, here for nook, and here for everywhere else e-books are downloaded.
December 16, 2011
december post (not much to report. . .)
But this is what I'm reading, and this is what I've read. If you want to drink what I'm drinking, and support contingent faculty (aka adjuncts, academic contract workers, etc.), then this might lead you to the path of enlightenment. Or at least help you stay awake.
Happy holidays, end of semester, etc.
Happy holidays, end of semester, etc.
december post
But this is what I'm reading, and this is what I've read. If you want to drink what I'm drinking, and support contingent faculty (aka adjuncts, academic contract workers, etc.), then this might lead you to the path of enlightenment. Or at least help you stay awake.
Happy holidays, end of semester, etc.
Happy holidays, end of semester, etc.
November 3, 2011
fish loaf
On Tuesday, November 8 at 7:00 p.m., I'm reading for ten minutes with seven others in the Self Auditorium at the Strom Thurmond Institute on Clemson's campus in South Carolina. It's a benefit for Loaves and Fishes, a "food raiser" as it were, where folks can bring canned goods and suffer through poetry and fiction. (Cash donations are also accepted, but don't expect me to shut up for just any amount of dough!) For more information, visit http://www.loavesandfishesgreenville.org/ or contact Mike Pulley in the Clemson University Department of English.
October 24, 2011
the saddest story i've listened to as an audiobook
Cyrus Duffleman finds himself in good company over at http://www.iambik.com/, sharing the homepage and a discount opportunity with arguably the greatest overlooked novel of the twentieth century, Ford Madox Ford's
The Good Soldier
.
Okay, so Ford may be the canonical genius, the great one I just mentioned as the most overlooked--yeah, but you know better to listen to what I say, and all that, but I would suggest that Cyrus's sloppy, sadsack routines can give Ford's narrator a run for his sadness. Unless you find his troubles to be amusing.
Okay, so Ford may be the canonical genius, the great one I just mentioned as the most overlooked--yeah, but you know better to listen to what I say, and all that, but I would suggest that Cyrus's sloppy, sadsack routines can give Ford's narrator a run for his sadness. Unless you find his troubles to be amusing.
the saddest story i know
Cyrus Duffleman finds himself in good company over at http://www.iambik.com/, sharing the homepage and a discount opportunity with arguably the greatest overlooked novel of the twentieth century, Ford Maddox Ford's
The Good Soldier
.
Okay, so Ford may be the canonical genius, the great one I just mentioned as the most overlooked--yeah, but you know better to listen to what I say, and all that, but I would suggest that Cyrus's sloppy, sadsack routines can give Ford's narrator a run for his sadness. Unless you find his troubles to be amusing.
And, yes, I apologize for the mediocre quality of this content. My bad, dude.
Okay, so Ford may be the canonical genius, the great one I just mentioned as the most overlooked--yeah, but you know better to listen to what I say, and all that, but I would suggest that Cyrus's sloppy, sadsack routines can give Ford's narrator a run for his sadness. Unless you find his troubles to be amusing.
And, yes, I apologize for the mediocre quality of this content. My bad, dude.
October 23, 2011
wah
"Cyrus Duffleman is the unrecognized legislator of the world," says Kudera as sighs, stares, and then takes out his little notebook and scribbles something down.
