Tag: CCCC

Lloyd-Jones on Centrality

/ Derek Mueller / 2 Comments

In "A View from the Center," his 1977 CCCC keynote address, here’s what
Richard Lloyd-Jones said about Mrs. Peterson, "the emblem" of those in his
audience:

Some will share a memory with me–the recollection of picking up the phone,
cranking one long ring, and getting "central." You could ring various
combinations of shorts and longs and get specific subscribers directly, but if
you really wanted to know what was going on in the village you rang
"central."

The folks in bigger towns, which had numbers, had to call central in order
to be hooked up to anybody else on the system, but their central didn’t know
much except numbers, and out central had a name–Mrs. Peterson–and she knew
all sorts of things. Somehow, in the village, she knew who was at the
bank, who had gone down to the ice house, who hadn’t been feeling well.
I don’t know that she listened in on all the conversations, but we supposed
so. She just made herself central in the life of the community. In our more
urban and perhaps urbane way, we would think of her as a communication nexus,
but we’d to better to remember Mrs. Peterson as Central. (49)

Compositionist as pastoral telephone operator. A communication nexus.
This isn’t the only metaphor Lloyd-Jones invokes in the talk, but it is the
piece that resonates most with network studies. Whatever her methods
(eavesdropping? Mrs. Peterson!), she is knowing because of a high degree of
centrality, her niche in a reasonably sized network. When network
become too large, the connector’s knowledge diminishes. Thresholds: Central
knows only numbers in densely populated areas.

Nothing to add beyond that. Just reading for exams,
posting notes,
and thinking Lloyd-Jones was talking about network centrality in his address out
in Kansas City some years ago.

Conference Rewind

/ Derek Mueller / 2 Comments

Finally I’m resetting the needle to a groove, settling in for the intensive
few weeks until semester’s end, and shaking off the thrill of conversation
and catching up throughout the stay in Chicago. I had a good conference despite
the sting of $leeping in the conference hotel. It was great to finally meet
a host of folks I’ve known casually in blogspace–Marcia,
Debbie,
Spencer,
Krista,
Jeff, and
Bradley. Blogging–whatever else
can be said of it–gives folks a fuller presence at the conference (judging by
the last two Cs); this idea–of quasi-professional connection–is what we were just beginning to get at in the SIG on
Friday evening.

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CCCC Chicago

/ Derek Mueller

Vanishing Point

I snuck away from the conference hotel yesterday afternoon to grab a few photos at the lakefront–one of the many positives to attending a conference in downtown Chicago this week. It was sunny and 45F, perfect for a brisk stroll along the lakeshore.

Initial impressions of the conference: 1. Smooth travels, after de-icing in Syracuse. 2. Can’t get a cell phone signal in the hotel. 3. The “high” speed internet connection rung up at $10 per day. nd cld nly gt ntrmttnt cnnctvty ystrdy ftrnn. I think I could count the baud rate on one hand a few times…or deliver the data packets by passenger pigeon faster than they travelled through the wires. By “high speed,” Hilton, do you really mean, “Hi, Speed” (bc you’re so happy to see Speed when it visits)? No, you’re right, I really don’t need to spend much time with the internets in the days ahead. 4. Good food, great company. And that, of course, makes the conference conferentially satisfying.

Enough. The list will grow, as will the photo set. I’m going to grab something to eat, attend the keynote address and gear up for the talk about CCC Online later this afternoon.

Addressing Addresses Addressed

/ Derek Mueller

Below the fold you’ll find a map-like project I’ve been working on for a
little while today.  It’s a spread of the CCCC addresses since Lloyd-Jones
in 1977 with pop-ups including the details about each chair’s address (notice:

Roen’s upcoming collection).  If the corresponding text of the talk has
been run through parsing and posting at CCC
Online, you’ll find a link to it from the map. 

Why this?  Why now?  For one thing I wanted to get back in and
tinker around with Google Maps EZ. 
I used it
when it first came about, but there have been a few changes, including an
expanded range of options for coloring and labeling the markers. The
markers work with single characters; I’ve color-specified the placemarkers by
decade, then used a number to show the year of the convention and talk. It
leaves something to be desired, but it’s good enough for now. Ultimately,
I’d like to see two-digit markers; probably ought to look into how to do that
myself.  On the other hand, I probably should finish up grading.
And on the other other hand, I probably ought to turn off Judge Mathis
and stop playing Sudoku.

To add just a bit more rationale for this/now, I’m taking a course in
geography in the spring called Seminar in Cartography: Web Mapping and
Cybercartography. I don’t have much formal training in geography; the course
welcomes students from across the disciplines, and it will be the only course
outside of CCR that I’ll take during this program of study.  I don’t
have all the details about the GEO course yet, but we’ll be looking at a book called
Mapping Hacks and
hacking and writing a few maps of our own. And because, at my geekiest, I’m keen on
mapping disciplinarity (among other stuff, imaginaries, etc., as well…might
even argue that disciplinarity is an imaginary, and that it’s too vast and
complex to know totally, so we map away). Yeah, well, that’s why this/now.
I’d say more, but I have to walk over to a chiropractic appt. (neck’s still
killing me), then catch up with D. for a ride to Ph.’s game.

Continue reading →

A Writing Teacher

/ Derek Mueller

Like so many others, I’m saddened to learn that John Lovas died
yesterday.  John was a dedicated teacher and faculty member at Deanza
Community College; he is well-known in the field as a champion of the teaching
of writing in two-year colleges, as a recent chair of the CCCC in Denver in
2000, as a reasoned, thoughtful, and patient colleague.  Far more personal
for me: John’s frequent comments and encouragement here in this weblog.  In
fact, as I just looked back at some of my early entries to find when I

first came to know John, I found that he was my second commenter–the first
who I didn’t know (and I’d been blogging just one week).  A spark! From
him, in that exchange on seating arrangements, I learned the "to each, one move"
rule and stopped putting desks back into ordered rows once and for all.  He
was steady with similar insights, and in time, I came to regard him as a friend
and a mentor even though I hadn’t ever met him in person.  I finally did
meet John in San Francisco during the CCCC in March. I’ll miss his being t/here.

Since early May, his own
weblog had grown unusually
quiet; his entries clued us to some change, but I had no idea he’d been
diagnosed with cancer. 
Clearly this entry isn’t half the panegyric I think his memory is due.
Other’s are posting at the

festschrift site and at
their
blogs.

View of the World

/ Derek Mueller / 3 Comments

Heading to San Francisco first thing in the morning to give a paper called “Ping! Re-Addressing Audience in the Blogosphere” at the
flagship CCCC, the annual conference for college composition and communication.
And I’ve never been to California before (no closer than Portland and Phoenix,
anyhow).  Because I still have to pack, have this, a statement on worldview:

Saul Steinberg’s "View of the World from 9th Avenue"
(via)

No telling whether I’ll luck into a reliable net connection in
SF (which I’d use to post a few photos, probably, little else).