Primo Levi

"Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are … the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions."

Levi is one of the most respected and eminent of all survivors and chroniclers of the Holocaust. His comment suggests that some of the most devastating evil is enacted, not by great monsters, but by people who lack the intellectual and moral curiosity to ask what is going on, to think clearly about what they are asked to do and why. The Holocaust required hundreds of thousands of functionaries to implement: train drivers, guards, accountants, engineers, mechanics, chemists, carpenters, clerks -- even doctors. It was the collective willingness of these nameless functionaries that made possible the elimination of European Jews. Everyone rationalized that they were doing their job, carrying out what they were "supposed to do." No single person made possible the great horror, but a hive of individuals, each doing their own tiny tasks that, gathered together, led to an unprecedented atrocity that forever changed humans' conception of the evil that humans can effect on each other. This example of unquestioning obedience, of reflexive compliance, of a monumental failure to pay attention to the world, should be the most powerful argument of all in favor of a shared understanding of humane literacy. Critical and independent thinking, combined with a cultivation of the moral imagination, can create a people immune from the machinations of monsters who require the complacency of the many to implement their catastrophes.

Hans Erich Nossack

Hans Erich Nossack was a major German writer of the 20th century. Born in 1901, Nossack survived the wars and is best known for three major works, all available in English translation. The End describes the Allied firebombing of Hamburg and its aftermath. An Offering for the Dead is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the protagonist must dream a world back to life. And Wait for November concerns lovers who struggle to escape to a freedom from societal restraints even as their pasts prove difficult to leave behind. It has been compared with Madame Bovary as an exemplary literary work that anatomizes love -- its passions and complexities -- from the perspective of a woman seeking to break free.

An Offering for the Dead opens on a scene of devastation and confusion. "It was raining again. Or still. I had no power over it. So I stood up and went back. I told the people: "I will find a road." Not that they asked me to do so. They were lying around like lumps of clay; a few rolled over, sighing. I only said it because at that moment it struck me as the the right thing for them. But it was a lie; for I knew that the road could not possibly be where I was heading. And that was why I hesitated after a few steps; perhaps I would have done better to add: 'If I do not come back, start off as fast as possible in the opposite direction.' I could also have left them something of mine, to reveal that I could no longer be counted on. But I had already vanished behind the curtain of rain. Besides, my words would have made no sense. The people had no inkling whatsoever that I was returning. They had lost all sense of direction." 

Weavers, Scholars, Writers

"That weavers in particular, together with scholars and writers with whom they had so much in common, tended to suffer from the melancholy and all the evils associated with it, is understandable given the nature of their work, which forced them to sit bent over, day after day, straining to keep their eye on the complex patterns they created. It is difficult to imagine the depths of despair into which those can be driven who, even after the end of the working day, are engrossed in their intricate designs, and who are pursued, into their dreams, by the feeling they have got hold of the wrong thread." -- W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn

Susan Sontag: Pay Attention

“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. It’s all about taking in as much of what’s out there as you can, and not letting the excuses and the dreariness of some of the obligations you’ll soon be incurring narrow your lives. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.You’ll notice that I haven’t talked about love. Or about happiness. I’ve talked about becoming — or remaining — the person who can be happy, a lot of the time, without thinking that being happy is what it’s all about. It’s not. It’s about becoming the largest, the most inclusive, most responsive person you can be.” -- Susan Sontag

A Poem for a Snowy Day

Robert Frost is probably America's best-known poet. Often thought of, mistakenly, as the Norman Rockwell of American letters, Frost was actually concerned with the tragic and the melancholy. But, we'll leave tragedy and melancholy for another day. Today, we're all coping with and, hopefully, enjoying the snow. So, here's a link to Frost's much-loved "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening." You will also find at this same link other serious poems about snow and the myriad feelings and responses the white stuff provokes in humans. Maybe read or listen to a couple. Beats shoveling. Happy reading.

Rereading America: An Unconventional Introduction to Critical Reading and Writing

This semester, we'll spend a lot of time with a text that is anything but traditional in undergraduate composition classrooms. It's called Rereading America by Columbo, Cullen, and Lisle.

Many professors and students use this book, but it's not a routine choice. So, what makes it different? Simply this: the readings are organized according to what the authors call dominant American myths, e.g., the myth of success, of progress, of equality, of the American Dream, of the traditional family, and so on. Readings challenge these myths and ask you to critically respond to the myths and to the ways that many writers deconstruct them. More traditional, perhaps conservative, viewpoints are also included.

It is not important whether you agree or disagree with the readings. Rather, the important considerations will be your ability to engage with the texts, think about them critically, and respond to the readings with sound arguments articulated in writing that is mechanically solid, logically coherent, and superbly organized. I think you'll enjoy this unconventional approach to learning to read closely, carefully, and critically. I'm eager to learn what you think of the book.

Who's Your Professor?

Many students are curious about the human with whom they'll spend the next several months. If you're one of those and want to know a little about me, your composition professor, read on.

The woman on my left in the photo is the main part of my life. Her name's Dr. Rita Nezami. She's smart -- smarter than me by a long shot -- and teaches at SUNY-Stony Brook. Her specialty is North African literature written in French. She translates it to English, writes about it, talks about it to people at conferences. She's been published in the New Yorker and has a book coming out from Northwestern University Press this spring.

I mention Rita first because she is, after all, the most important aspect of my conscious life. If you want to know something about me, like what I consider most important, well, there you have it.

My second passion is reading and writing. After putting in several years working as a staffer in the U.S. House of Representatives, I spent more than 20 years as a professional writer and editor in large organizations in both the public and private sectors even as I kept my scholarly education on track. I made the switch to academia in 2010 when I began teaching in the Writing and Rhetoric Program at SUNY-Stony Brook. I love my students, and I love teaching. If you would like to read some of my writing, head over to my Tumblr blog.

My scholarly field is Holocaust and genocide studies. That means I study the catastrophe that occurred to European Jews during the second world war, although my particular interest lies in the literature that emerged by survivors and subsequent generations after the war. I'm especially interested in the work of second- and third-generation Jewish German writers and their responses to the Holocaust, its memory and representation in works of literature.

At the heart of all my work is writing and rhetoric, which is why I teach those subjects today. I strongly believe that there is an intimate connection between ethical decision making, critical thinking, close reading, and the capacities to write sensitively and thoughtfully about ourselves and the various aspects of our world that intrigue us. 

Learning to write well is about a lot more than getting the rules of grammar and punctuation right and mastering the art of thesis sentences and library research. It's certainly about all those things, but only as a starting point. Once we move beyond mastering the mechanics of writing, composition is about learning to think, to assess, to deliberate, to weight and consider. It's about finding the language to clothe our ideas so that we can articulately convey our thoughts to others, but, perhaps most importantly, so that we can discover what we actually think about a problem by writing about it. Sometimes it is only through writing that we find out something about our own minds and the reasons why we reach the conclusions we do. It is true, as a matter of fact, that we sometimes have to write our way into an understanding of significant problems. These are some of the topics we'll be thinking about this semester.

These notes are supposed to be about more than just who I am as a scholar. So, I can tell you that I was born and raised in Texas, although I was a terrible Texan and am much happier in the Northeast. I worked as a staffer in the U.S. Congress for several years. I'm an English teacher, so it probably goes without saying that I enjoy reading, but I also love classical music, especially Bach and Gustav Mahler. I enjoy going with Rita into the city to concerts and museums. Maybe I'll post a couple of links to some favorite music in this blog sometime if you'd like to take a listen. 

I hope you'll do the same on your blogs -- post links to art and music you like so that I -- and your colleagues -- can learn more about you than is possible in the classroom. I care about my students as humans and as individuals, not just as creatures who show up in my classes and to whom I'm supposed to assign a grade. So, I hope you'll use your blog to let me and your peers get to know you a bit.

What am I forgetting? Ah, well, yes: I have a 25-year-old daughter who works in healthcare back in Texas. She's an excellent Texan and wouldn't think of living elsewhere else despite her father's pleadings to give Washington or New York or Boston a try. 

You'll find that while my expectations are high in terms of your academic performance, I'm also easy-going and especially eager to help my students. I look forward to having you in my class this semester.

Now, it's your turn. When you can, post a short or long post about yourself -- who you are, the things you enjoy, the aspects of the world that especially intrigue you, the experiences that have helped shape the person you are today. Whatever you want to share, as much or as little. A photograph would be nice -- if you feel comfortable doing that. Most importantly, make your blog your own. Design it and write it the way you like. Obviously, you'll be writing about class subjects, but you certainly don't have to restrict yourself to the topics we study and write about. Those things are good starting places, but the rest is up to you.

Happy writing!