Student Opinions Wanted: Online Survey Now Available

As you may have heard, AMS have been awarded a teaching fellowship to perform important research on how the University as a whole might further assist students in the transition between college or sixth form and university. We would be extremely grateful if you could find 15 minutes to complete the on-line version of the survey here.

You do not need to be an AMS student to participate -- we are looking for responses from across the humanities. Your participation in this research will be highly valued.

This information is being used to:

• write an in-depth and anonymised report on the way that university level teaching relates to the kinds of skills and study styles students bring with them from sixth forms and colleges.
• further tailor the AMS study skills course to the needs of incoming students with the expectation that this course will work as a pilot for similar schemes across the university.
• produce a version of the HUM study skills handbook specifically tailored to the needs and strengths of incoming students.

All answers will be treated as anonymous. Thank you for taking part.

Very best regards,
Sarah Garland (AMS)

Research Seminars: MA Dissertation Roundtable

This year's series of Research Seminars comes to a close on Wednesday. Following the success of the last MA Dissertation Roundtable in October last year, we'll be repeating the occasion this week.

Wednesday 14th May 2008, A2.51, 4pm. All welcome.

News: The Game of Chess is Like a Swordfight...

RZA vs GZA

In today's Guardian, Jonathan Leggett has profiled the ongoing relationship between chess and hip hop. In particular, he profiles the way in which these worlds have come together "in the battle against street crime." Of prime importance is the Hip Hop Chess Federation (or visit their blog). In the words of founders Adiso Banjaka and Leo "Blast" Libiran:

"We recognize that chess, martial arts and hip-hop unify people from multiple cultural, religious and social backgrounds. These black and white squares do not care what color you are or if you are rich or poor. The only thing they ask is that you come with your strategy, your patience and your skills."

Also highly significant are the activities of Wu Tang Clan mastermind RZA (pictured above). As well as supporting the activities of the HHCF, RZA is about to launch his own chess portal - Wu Chess. You can sign up for an invite now, though the site hasn't yet gone live. And this isn't just a Stateside phenomenon. Last week, RZA visited Liverpool to promote Wu Chess. Below, a promotional video:

News: Revision Music

Students at the University of Wisconsin's Daily Cardinal have come up with a poll of what they consider to be the best "study break" music. Here's a selection:

• “Battle Without Honour” by Tomoyasu Hotei

  Just imagine walking into your final exam, the main theme from “Kill Bill” blaring in your ears as you slice an entire stack of blue books to shreds with your samurai skills. If that doesn’t motivate you, I don’t know what will. —Kevin Slane

• “Here’s Your Future” by The Thermals

  This song is valuable for its ability to summarize the Old and New Testaments in roughly two minutes. Couplets like “Fear me again and know I’m your Father / Remember that no one can breathe underwater” double as snappy punk rock and indispensable cliff notes for your next Biblical history final. —Matt Hunziker

• “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper

  Be sure to save this gem for your last exam, as playing it at the beginning of finals week can merely result in depression and lethargy. —Kevin Slane
  

There are plenty of suggestions over at the Daily Cardinal. But more importantly, what are your suggestions?

News: 100 Posts

To commemorate the fact that Containing Multitudes is 100 posts old, we're turning the spotlight on the recently released Time 100 2008 - a list of the year's most influential people. The results are typically surprising. The "winner"? Japanese video game designer and the power behind the Nintendo Wii, Shigeru Miyamoto. Second? Korean pop-star Rain (last year's winner, no less). Next up? Satirical comedian Stephen Colbert. The full list can be found here (though it still seems to be in a state of flux). Who would you put at the top of the list?

UPDATE: Colbert has been having fun with his defeat to Rain...

Election News: Is The End in Sight?

After all the weeks of campaigning, it looks like things are finally reaching a conclusion in the Democratic race to the White House - almost without warning. Despite Barack Obama's apparent loss of momentum in the last few weeks, his victory in North Carolina and very narrow defeat in Indiana means that his lead is essentially insurmountable. For now, Hillary Clinton has pledged to carry on. But exactly how long that will last is very debatable. The writing is on the wall, and in the papers...

• John Dickerson, writing for Slate, questions "Has Obama finally clinched it?", whilst Chadwick Matlin puts Clinton's campaign on "Deathwatch".
• Walter Shapiro in Salon argues that Clinton is "closer to oblivion".
• In the New York Times, Jim Rutenberg analyses the pundits' reaction to events and finds that they've called the race for Obama.
  
• And Dana Millbank, in the Washington Post, thinks it's "All Over But The Shouting".

News: Happy Cinco de Mayo

George Bush hosting Cinco de Mayo celebrations at the White House, 2001

Cinco de Mayo - mean anything to you? Chances are it doesn't, since May 5th celebrations haven't really made much of an impact this side of the Atlantic. In America, however, Cinco de Mayo has become a significant occasion for the celebration of Hispanic culture. In its origins, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla in 1862, a victory for the Mexican Army against occupying French forces. In its modern form, it has become a more general Latino celebration (commonly confused with Mexican Independence Day), marked with much greater vigour in America than in Mexico itself. In part, this is the result of good marketing. Beer and tequila companies have been keen to establish Cinco de Mayo as something akin to St. Patrick's Day. Yet marketing aside, it is apparent that Cinco de Mayo has become a notable date on the calendar, and not just for America's 45 million Hispanics. This year, George Bush, who has previously held Cinco de May events at the White House, released a statement to mark the day: "Today, we remember these heroic accomplishments and all those working to advance peace and liberty around the globe. This holiday is also an opportunity to recognize the strong ties of family, economy, and culture that bind the United States and Mexico."

Read a New York Times editorial on the day here, and an account of Cinco de Mayo in the city here, whilst food blog Serious Eats has a series of Cinco de Mayo recipes here. Anyone with plans for a Cinco de Mayo Bank Holiday?

AMS: Now on Facebook

AMS is extending its presence on the internet again, this time with its own facebook page. There's a link in the sidebar on the right - or use the one here:



Please take a second to become a fan of the page to keep in touch with any events in the school and help promote AMS to the wider world. But don't worry: becoming a fan is not the same as becoming a friend, and we won't be able to view any of your personal pages.

News: John Porcellino writes...

Following on from yesterday's look at three graphic adaptations of American literary classics, Containing Multitudes is very proud to present an exclusive account of the genesis of Thoreau at Walden by the book's creator, John Porcellino:

James Sturm of the Center for Cartoon Studies contacted me about doing a book on Thoreau for their series of American Biographies. As soon as he suggested it, I got very excited about the possibilities. Thoreau has been a major inspiration to me since my High School days, and to get the chance to immerse myself in his work and life, and then to try to bring that out in a way that would be accessible to contemporary readers was really a dream come true for me, pardon the cliché.

Thoreau at Walden isn't a straight biography, nor is it an adaptation of Walden. I think of it more as a kind of impression of his experience at the pond. The book is arranged, like Walden, into seasons, and covers "one year" of Thoreau's time there.

The way I put the book together was to read as much of his work as I could again, taking notes this time. I jotted down quotations and passages on index cards, and arranged them by theme: The Pond, Animals, Visitors, The Beanfield, Food etc. Then I set to work arranging the quotations into some kind of narrative stream. I used extracts from not only Walden itself, but also Thoreau's other writings. So one page might have a quote from Walden in the first panel, but a line from a later essay in the next. I tried to use only direct actual quotes from Thoreau's writing (I'd edit them a little, or adjust the punctuation if needed to maintain continuity between panels). In the end I only had to add a very few of my own words here and there, to keep things consistent. It was really important to me that the words be Thoreau's own.

Walden is such a dense, beautiful text, that almost every line in it could be fodder for pages of exploration. I tried to keep to the essence, and obviously there's a lot that that couldn't be included.

I looked at the book as a sort of collaboration, and I strove to do justice to Thoreau's work. It was a great honor to work on the book. Having spent much time in the woods and fields myself, throughout my life, I tried to bring my own experience into the book in certain ways, when it seemed appropriate. I know what it's like, for instance, to be out in the woods and get caught in the rain. I tried to imbue the story with those feelings and experiences, so that it would not only be about the words and ideas, but also the practical experience of being alive that led to those ideas.

Of course one can’t help but realize, in reading Thoreau nowadays, how vital and relevant his philosophy is to the contemporary world. I really wonder what he would have thought about the way things have gone. My hope with the book was to in some way bring this much-needed philosophy into a context that readers today would find accessible. And I hope that the book will inspire interested readers to explore Thoreau's writings further. He wasn't just about ideas, he put his ideas into practical action. We could use more people like Thoreau today!

John Porcellino

King-Cat Comics and Stories:
P.O. Box 18888 / Denver, CO / 80218 / U.S.A.
website: www.king-cat.net

News: Graphic Adaptations of American Classics

They say that three's a trend, and if so, there's a discernible current trend for comic book adaptations of nineteenth century American literary classics. In recent months three very different canonical texts have been reworked into compelling reimaginings.

First up: Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Part of the new Marvel Illustrated line, this version of Melville's novel has been adapted by legendary comic writer Roy Thomas. This follows last year's adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. You can read a Q&A with Thomas and others here.

Next: Thomas Gray's (and Nat Turner's) The Confessions of Nat Turner. More radical than Thomas' Moby Dick is Kyle Baker's powerful, revisionist adaptation of slave rebel Nat Turner's story. As well as telling Turner's story, Baker's version works as a larger exploration of American slavery, and begins with Turner's mother's experience of the middle passage.

And finally: Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Perhaps the most surprising adaptation is John Porcellino's Thoreau at Walden, published by the Center for Cartoon Studies. Though lacking the narrative drive of the other two texts, Porcellino's version of Walden may in fact best highlight the possibilities of reimagining a classic text in a new medium. Read the School Library Journal's review here.