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Okay, that may sound flaky to some of you. But that is what Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, neuralanatomist and intellectual, discussed in her talk at Ted.com.

Speaking about the left and right brain, she distinguishes between the work of the two sides of our brain, and how the two are really different personalities.

She then illustrates what will happen to us if, just like what she experienced after a hemorrhage, her left brain stopped functioning.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. You should listen to her talk first:

And so, wouldn't it be wonderful indeed to devote more of our time processing our right hemispheres, and as a result project the peace and love and kindness that makes up the energies around us? Now that sounds really flaky. Or is it just my left brain acting as censor and comptroller of my life?

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That's how Amy Tan describes how she creates her story. By imagining herself in the story she is writing, believing in the belief system of the place and people she writes about, being in the story, she is able to come to what she says are "particles of truth" that allows for some understanding of things.

Here's Amy Tan's talk on Ted.com:

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Not just about their art but also about making a change in this world. That's exactly how Isabel Allende was in her talk on Ted.com, as she told tales of passion. And the operative definition for passion here is from its etymology -- the Latin for "suffering." Here's Allende:

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The tricky part indeed is the morning after when the dancer wakes up to find himself the mortal being with weak knees.

I like the notion of giving the idea of genius back to its supernatural source only because having it reside in the artist is quite a burden for the latter. Especially the morning after.

Because come to think of it, the artist already has a lot to worry about mastering the craft -- especially for moments when "divine inspiration" takes the day off, leaving the artist to earn a living.

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S-M-C-R, with Noise in the middle
How do you dance communication models?

Apparently it came so easy for my Intro to Comm Theories students. After showing them a sample communication model, I asked them to either draw or perform the communication process using the communication acts they observed.

Of course almost all of them chose to perform their "models" or "abstractions," trying to outdo each other in portraying the different elements in the communication transmission process.

While all used variations of Berlo's or Osgood and Schramm's communication models as they applied it to particular situations, they became creative in personifying the mechanical elements of Message, Channel, Noise, and Feedback.

I don't think next session's lecture will be boring at all.

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Bibliomania 16/11/2009
 
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Why do I always get pulled into bookstores?

I was supposed to buy new shirts at the mall when I passed by a bookstore. Next thing I knew, there I was browsing through the titles. Had to stop myself and magicked my two feet to march out the bookstore.

I succeeded in not buying a book, but failed to buy new shirts in my hurry to get back home.

But then, this is nothing new. As a kid, my parents would often scold me for burying my nose in a book rather than doing my chores. They thought I was slacking off. They were right, of course. Reading has always been my escape.

In all the houses or apartments I've stayed in through the years, the clutter of books and magazines would define how the place would be "Home." In the apartment I rent now, one side of my bedroom is filled from floor to ceiling with shelves overflowing with books. Cabinets are stuffed with books and mags that won't fit into the shelves.

Even this blog isn't spared, what with the Amazon Wish List and Shelfari widgets on the sidebar.

Now you know where to look for me at the mall.

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Because some would say it's not. And so they require something more from creative writers.

This is the question I ask myself while preparing for the first consultation sessions in CW 200b Creative Writing Thesis.

On one hand some would say that creative writing is research. One of the advocates is the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) in UK. In their Creative Writing Subject/Research Benchmark Statement, published in September 2008, they make the following arguments:
  • Creative works are imaginative interpretations of the world
  • Creative writing research is creative practice, or "practice-led research"
  • Creative writing research "explore[s], articulate[s] and investigate[s]" a "broad range of subjects, emotions and ideals prevalent in the world" (11)
  • Creative writing research is done by creating, and creative works are research output
  • Creative writing research is creating with "critical understanding" (11)
  • Creative writing research contributes original knowledge, and that new knowledge advances the field of creativity
  • Creative writing research may include critical or reflective discourses that supplement the creative work
But defining creative writing research is different from its acceptance in the academe, where scholarly work is dominated and governed by positivist dogma.

And so in our Creative Writing Thesis class, we require our senior students to submit a collection of creative works accompanied with a critical preface.

The critical preface functions as a supplementary discourse that allows students to articulate their creative writing process and practice. It serves to document students' technical and critical acumen. As one Creative Writing teacher puts it, in the final report of the University of London's English Subject Center's Mini Project on "Supplementary Discourses in Creative Writing Teaching at Higher Education Level," published in March 2003:

"The supplementary discourses give students ways of discussing and understanding contemporary poetry and art -- and ways of developing their own practice as a result." (8)

This is as close as Creative Writing can go -- without crossing over into Literary Studies -- in terms of the demands of "measurable" scholarly work. As another Creative Writing teacher says, as quoted in the English Subject Center's report:

"supplementary discourses are the only way of persuading colleagues hostile to creative writing that it has some 'academic probity.'" (10)

So is creative writing research? What do you think?

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Sex Pistols 14/11/2009
 
Imagine this: nerdy academics in a conference hall singing along to a YouTube video of Sex Pistol's "No Fun."

That must have been a sight to see, what C witnessed at the Digital Labor conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory" at the Eugene Lang College, New School, this Nov. 12-14, 2009. 

Here's a YouTube video of the Sex Pistols, perhaps you'll be singing along too.
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Villa with American and British writers
What better way, I thought, to make Creative Writing students locate themselves in Philippine literature than to choose a side in the Villa-Lopez controversy.

The exercise was basically to make the students recall what they had read and discussed in CL 150 (The Literature of the Philippines in English I) last semester. By asking students to take a side in the Villa-Lopez debate, perhaps the students would also recall the developments in Philippine writing from the pre-Spanish to the Spanish eras and up to the 1940s.

So before the class would engage itself this semester in discussions on Philippine literature in English from the 1940s to the present, I thought it would be enlightening to see how students saw themselves in either the tradition of Villa's aesthetic formulation or in the tradition of Lopez and other socially-committed writers.

And what a discussion it turned out to be, with more questions being asked than answered. Implicated in the exchange were such issues as:
  • the preeminence of artistic production over social responsibility
  • the writer as visionary
  • the writer as revolutionary
  • the idea of a "universal" literature
  • the discourse of art vs. propaganda
  • the colonialist project
  • the nationalist project
And so many other questions we hope to answer in a semester of CL 151 (The Literature of the Philippines in English II).

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Classes again 13/11/2009
 
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It's back to the classroom now. I'm teaching two sections of an Intro to Communication Theories class, a Media: History, Development and Theories class, and a Contemporary Philippine Literature in English class this semester. I also have six Communication Arts Thesis advisees and one Creative Writing Thesis advisee. Looks like this will be a busy semester for me.

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