Dr. G. Devi

English 405 Grammars of English

Unit Test 2 Extra Credit

Due Date: 16 Nov., typed or written cleanly, in class

Say whether the following sentences use transitive verbs, intransitive verbs or linking verbs.  Give your grammatical reason in a sentence or so. Make a sentence of your own with the same verb.  In sentences with multiple verbs, use the main verb with primary tense marked on it. (5 points)

Enzo likes mashed potatoes.

Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find that he had been changed into a giant cockroach.

Valerie looks extremely morose today.

Peter studies diligently.

Peter studies philosophy.

Study the following sentences and say whether you can turn them into passive sentences. If no, give your reason.  (5 points)

The carver sits in the shadows.

Chicanos want to preserve their heritage.

Peter showed him a picture of his brain.

The machine rewards the individual.

The boy shines shoes.

Another fantastic day at the conference. Some good panels — one a pedagogy panel on using literature and film to teach human rights, and another good one on various postcolonial texts. An intriguing presentation on whether our bodies can sense a trauma like genocide and react appropriately. The presenter seemed to argue that there is such a certain response as a “bodily response.” I am not sure there is. I have worked with enough disabled people both physical and intellectual to know that there is no such categorical thing called a “fight or flight” response. It is a flawed model. Some of us simply don’t have the fight or flight response; it is dangerous to put such frameworks on great crimes against human civilizations such as genocides. If we all “sensed” a genocide, do we leave then and thus avert genocide? Very dangerous to think along those lines, in my thinking. It was also interesting that the presenter who spoke about Mahasweta Devi and her great story Puran Sahay and the Pterodactyl seemed to find an analogy between our environmental problems in the US and our inability to get proper medical care here in the US etc –between our lives here and the lives of the tribals in India. Actually we are all much much much better off than the denotified tribes dying in dying forests in India. They have truly become the “fourth world” –those colonized and exploited by their own government and Devi’s story which really should stop our hearts when we read it–it is testimonial writing at its most excruciating level– exposes India’s independence for what it is–it was in a way unbelievable for me to hear this story equated with us and our sufferings in the US! But I guess empathy even when it is incomplete and unsure is better than outright neglect. Our women’s studies panel was wonderful as well. A very interesting presentation–an ethnographic report actually–on the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance–apparently it was functional from the mid seventies to the early nineties–and then simply died. The writer was trying to answer the question how these ad hoc communities are born and why they die–they refused to align themselves with any mainstream feminist alliances–and whether they serve any useful structural change purposes. I enjoyed it quite a bit–it is something that interests me as well. How much should you work with a structure that you know is inherently exploitative? When should you cut that tie? “Just as I will not be anyone’s master, so will I not be anyone’s servant”– as the great man once observed. But the best, the best, the absolutely best part of the day was Anne McClintock’s presentation–Imperial Paranoia–a discussion about Torture, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison and the war on terror.  I have not heard a more beautiful articulation of what our government is doing to these men women and children of Afghanistan, Iraq, Philippines and other “enemy” nations ever before. I remember as a twelve year old reading Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee–highest number of US military medals awarded by the US army for the killing of the 200 some men women and children of the Lakota Sioux–what is Afghanistan? What is Iraq?–my first introduction to Native American history in the US–now looking back there are many other books that are much more historically relevant than Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee–but when I was twelve and I read it I still remember feeling absolutely stricken by it, just stricken by it. My body and my mind felt the same way today listening to McClintock. Very very important work.

Sorry honey mama was not able to go anywhere or get anything for you other than listen to all these wonderful scholars and the work they do. That’s good isn’t it?  I will get you something from the airport–that is what those shops are for! See you tomorrow!

A very good day at the conference. Some interesting panels on humanities and human rights, film and human rights, medicine and literature. All interesting. Caryl Philips’ plenary speech was very interesting. Before the speech started itself, the thing became interesting. It was almost a tableau. While the moderator was introducing Caryl Philips an old black man who works at the conference hotel slowly walked around the big room and behind the raised podium and onto the podium with a couple of bottles of water and glasses for all the speakers. So some of us just work all the time, don’t we? Phillips read a short essay about his experiences visiting a refugee camp in Calais that houses refugee/immigrants–most of them Afghanis and Iraqis–trying to cross over from Europe to the UK. Apparently France bulldozed the camp. Phillips wrote about going there disguised as someone looking for a refugee–an African refugee and they believed him because he is black too–and described his experiences in the camp. Very interesting essay.

I really loved Margarita Drago’s plenary address. She read from her memoir Memory Tracks: Fragments from Prison (1975-1980). Very beautiful and moving. I loved the two epigraphs to the book: one a direct quote from General Iberico Saint Jean, one of the men responsible for Argentina’s Dirty War 1976-77. Here it is: “First we will kill all the subversives, then we will kill all of their collaborators, then . . . their sympathizers. Immediately after . . . those who remained indifferent, and finally, we will kill the timid.” What is interesting of course is that they all sleep soundly at night after saying things like this. It is like in Reservoir Dogs–come on, let’s get a taco. The other quote is from Rumi: “Stay together, friends. Don’t scatter and sleep. Our friendship is made of being awake.” Beautiful, isn’t it? From the vicious to the humane–there you have the spectrum of humanity.  When I teach Resistance Literature, I usually teach prison memoirs–they are horrifying to our sweet students but they eventually learn to read it as readers. Wonderful woman and at several points you could tell how the experiences are still raw.  Somehow when you read slowly and give your words time to grasp around the shapes of these ungodly experiences, they become audible. We had a nice discussion about prison writing as a genre and how prison guards always forbid you from writing–that is the first thing they take away from you. I got a copy of Drago’s book–she even signed it for me: “To Gayatri with love and great respect Margarita Drago.” How kind eh? I will treasure it.

I have no idea what Atlanta is like; I have been inside all day. This hotel Renaissance Atlanta is very fancy (even the elevators are funky–you gotta work them with your room key–this is to keep out those who don’t belong here–man this place must be really dangerous!) and it is downtown but it almost feels like a war zone–there are constant police cars and police sirens. It sounds like there is crime all around us. I am on the 17th floor from where I can see the whole city. It looks exactly like Dallas. Full of tall buildings and mixmasters. I had a very nice fried green tomatoes sandwich today and a delicious roasted red pepper soup yesterday. I feel like eating a whole bunch of something terribly greasy and fried right now. I saw something frightening on the menu yesterday–french fries fried and smothered in a blue cheese sauce. I am so tempted to check it out. Update: It really looked scary on the neighboring table, so I decided to skip it. Instead I had the best sauteed spinach with garlic, and a flambe of mushrooms with a chipotle kind of marinade, and delicious sourdough bread. Good Earl Grey tea.  A wonderful dinner. Thank you dear lady who served me–you looked beat.

Apparently the new Oxford Companion to Literature is out–J. H. Prynne gets an entry! Right on, Oxford! And Neil Gaiman too. All good changes. Very expensive (35 pounds) but I think I will treat myself this Christmas. Nothing like a good reference book to brighten up your day, if you ask me.

What a week. Horrible sore throat, cough, fever but I am feeling better today.  These classrooms with poor ventilation the overheated rooms students sick all around — I am usually a very healthy person but this bug was a bad one. Anyway I am much better now.  Now I have to get up early and leave for the SAMLA conference, to Atlanta tomorrow.  I so look forward to the plenary speakers–when I taught Resistance Literature once I had students read Margarita Drago. And Caryl Philips and Anne McClintock. I am presenting on peasant movements in rural India. I always feel this way–that I am forgetting something. But the classes are taken care of. Have stuff to grade on the plane. Made food for Dayani and Krish till sunday — idli (Dayani loves these steamed rice dumplings) and cannellini beans curry, some fried fish. Don’t give dad a hard time–wake up for school, get ready, read your books, do your math, take a bath, and go to bed on time, okay, honey? Mama will miss you so much. I don’t know what Atlanta is famous for–but I will bring back something special for you!

Beautiful story about sea horses. I did not know this–among sea horses, it is the males that get pregnant, not the female of the species. Wonderful, isn’t it? I wish this could be true for the human species as well. Remember Marcello Mastroianni in Jacques Demy’s A Slightly Pregnant Man? There are so many men who would make wonderful pregnant “mothers” and so many women who are not at all fit to be “mothers.” I think it is wrong to limit pregnancy to just women. If a man wants to get pregnant, then he should be allowed to. Come on scientists, I wanna see this during my lifetime.

Dr. G. Devi

Phonetics/Phonology Extra Credit

Available Points: 10 points

Due Date: 6 November 2009, class time, typed or handwritten (clean copies please)

Write down minimal pairs for the following phonemes.  Transcribe the sounds into IPA. Follow your normal pronunciation.  (5 points)

/m/ and /w/ in initial position

/r/ and /s/ in medial position

/u/ and /i/ in medial position

/d/ and /Ø/ in initial position

/n/ and /η/ in final position

Identify the number of syllables in the following words. Put a “+” mark between the syllables. Or use the sigma  /σ/ symbol. Mark the nucleus, onset and coda of each syllable. (5 points)

Renfield

Dracula

Transylvania

Carpathians

Vlad the Impaler

English departments sometimes opt to dress up as literary characters for Halloween. I don’t usually do anything for Halloween–but this year I was thinking it would be good to have a thematic Halloween with characters from Bob Dylan’s songs. His songs are full of strange and colorful characters.  He has lots of wonderful characters, but I wouldn’t turn them into costumes; only the weird ones. In this, Dylan is like the authors of the great antiquity, say Aristotle–he has a strict moral compass and caricatures only those personalities that have a really bloated sense of self, the ultimate hubris of self-aggrandisement.   Really works your imagination to picture them. They would make a nice freak show. Here are a few characters that I have always really liked:

1. Diplomat who carries on his shoulder a Siamese cat– from that Biblical song “Like a Rolling Stone” — Right out of a Fellini movie!

2. Judge who holds a grudge who is badly built and walks on stilts

3. William Zanzinger with his cane and diamond ring finger

4. Big Jim with his silver cane, body guards and diamond mine and every hair in place

5. Rita who stepped out of La Dolce Vita and her dad who threw a Reader’s Digest at him

6. Maggie’s Pa who puts his cigar out in your face just for kicks, Maggie’s Ma who is 68 but looks 24

7. The entire cast of Desolation Row

8. Sweet Melinda the goddess of gloom

9. All the cast of characters in Stuck Inside of Mobile

10. Mattress balances a bottle of wine –the leopard skin pillbox hat

11. Phaedra with her looking glass

12. The Wicked Messenger whose tongue could not speak, but only flatter

13. The cast of characters in Black Diamond Bay

We–HOPE Center and the Women’s Coalition–held our annual October and Domestic Violence Awareness Month vigil this evening and it was a beautiful event. I took Dayani with me as well and she helped Lisette and I set up the chairs and tables etc. It was raining but we had a tent thing to keep out the rain–the ground was kind of muddy and squishy though. We were expecting 40-50 people, like last year, but it was wonderful–we had close to 150 people! The Black Gospel Choir opened the event with a gospel tune; Elizabeth gave a wonderful welcome to all, then Provost Deb Erikson spoke, followed by Laurie. Two students gave two moving testimonies of domestic violence they had witnessed, followed by a reading of an Eavan Boland poem by the Distinguished Gentlemen group. Tulare Park from the Counseling Center spoke about counseling services available to students free of charge on campus and the Gospel Choir concluded the event with another beautiful hymn.  We did a walk around the quad with glow sticks as well instead of candles because of the rainy weather. Very nice evening and I am so pleased with the student attendance. You would never guess all the stuff some of our students deal with on a daily basis. I had this young woman in my class one semester a while ago–she had missed quite a lot of classes–good student but very erratic in attendance and class work–then she disappeared for a while and came back one day to class–I had not known this then–but she told me that she was three months pregnant–she was a tiny person and did not show her pregnancy at all–but she had a black eye like you see in movies–and she told me that she had two ribs broken because her boyfriend–the father of this baby–had thrown her out of a moving car out on interstate 80. Apparently he goes to Penn State as well. What is up with these young people? I felt so sad for this girl; she had a restraining order on this young man and had essentially broken off all relations with him and they were both 18 or 19 years at the most. I told her she needed to go see a counselor and get some help; she was a wreck and could not focus on school at all.  She dropped out of school pretty soon after that. I wonder how she is doing, how that child is doing.

I asked Daya what she thought of the event; she told me she wanted to become someone who helps women and children and men who are hurt like that. Good idea, my dear, I told her. But here is the best thing about the evening though for me: I asked the Black Gospel Choir if I could join them and sing with them. It is a student group so I was not sure if they would allow faculty to join them–but they were so nice and thrilled; sure Dr. Devi, come sing with us they said! So I am going to go sing with them every wednesday for an hour. I have always wanted to sing in an acappella group and finally here is my chance. I asked Dayani if it was okay if I went and sang with this group for an hour wednesday evenings and she said it was fine with her. I am so happy. I can’t wait for my first practice next week.

One of the occupational hazards of being a grammar teacher is that you feel this compulsion to correct grammar in odd places. Krish and Dayani feel embarrassed when I look at a menu and find the only wrongly spelled word in it or the strange syntax. I often feel the need to correct it right there and then.  There was this Chinese store in Dallas that used to send shivers down my spine with their horrendous spelling and grammar that would make your hair turn white. I used to like to walk in that store just to read the strange things posted on its walls. This summer when I was in India I found spelling mistakes wherever I looked; one store manager looked positively murderous because I kept looking at the wrongly spelled list of merchandise behind him. I also find spelling errors in the pornographic messages scribbled inside elevator doors and restrooms. If you are leaving someone a pornographic message, at least get your spelling and grammar correct, nation! Anyway today I felt so honored when my student walked up to me and pulled down his lower lip and asked me if the word he had tattooed on the inside of his lip was grammatically correct: “ballin’” –urban slang for “awesome” — and he wanted to know if dropping that /g/ was grammatical or not. Since it was a lot of money, pain, and permanent he wanted to get it right. Of course it is kiddo! The /-ing/ is one of those contractable endings. Go ahead, drop it. Save that pain for another tattoo!

In the Night Kitchen, Brundibar, Where the Wild Things Are — along with Munschworks, Sendak’s stories were Dayani’s favorite stories when she was little. Part of the problem of classifying children’s literature is right there in that phrase “when she was little.” Because she is still little–she is nine. I started reading Sendak’s stories to her–the big book versions with those luminous illustrations–when she was four and five years old. That chunky naked baby boy swimming in and out of pages, lifted out of one, dropped into the other in In the Night Kitchen, the menacing Brundibar reminiscent of a Nazi soldier, the ailing mother and the helpless children, the beasts with no past in Where the Wild Things Are — were they appropriate stories for a four year old child? I thought so, though I could sense when I read them to her, that these stories did not differentiate between the world of children and adults and that the same horrors that pursue adults, pursue children as well.  Children respond to them differently. Adults respond to them differently. Sendak knew this and that is what is truthful and enduring about these books. I took Dayani and Aylin to see Where the Wild Things Are today and I must admit that I went with some trepidation; I would have been so saddened if it was something unbearable. Director Spike Jonze and writer Dave Eggers have fleshed out the story considerably, (the original story is only 8 or 10 sentences long), but the substantial screenplay, careful directing, and the spare, bare-bone settings give us the raw and simple vision of childhood that we experience in Sendak’s story. The children loved it; so did I.

In Sendak’s story, mother, tired of his mischiefs tells Max, “you’re a wild thing!” and Max tells her “I am going to eat you!” because that is what wild things do. So he is sent to bed without supper. Alone in his room, Max watches his room turn into a dark forest and then an open sea with a special boat for him to voyage out to where those just like him, the wild things, are. The semantic overdetermination that is so sweet, raw and sublime all at once in Sendak’s story has a seemingly different treatment in the film version; Max is unhappy with his home life with a tired and overworked mother (beautifully played by Catherine Keener), her boyfriend that he does not like, and a sister who ignores him. He runs away after a fight with his mother where he bites her, out to the river bank which acts as a portal to take him to where the wild things are.  Even with such plot development, Dave Eggers’s screenplay does catch the Freudian nuances of a child sent to bed without supper, very beautifully.  The themes of dependence, anxiety and aggression subliminally suggested in Sendak’s story is wonderfully developed in the movie version. The references to mouth, teeth, eating, and food starting with Max’s recounting for his mother his story of a vampire that loses all his teeth and is ostracized by all other vampires, his aggressive biting of his mother, the wild things that want to eat him, the gentle female wild thing KW that swallows him and keeps him safe in her stomach from the other wild things who want to eat him when they find out he is not really a king—we know where this is going–Max does not want to be king like his father reassured him to be–he is little Max pretending to be a wild thing. Children will want to play at “rumpus” for a while, but in the end, they need a hot supper and a warm bed with a loving parent.

Traditional animation and animatronic figures composed of clean and simple geometric lines curving in on themselves, sort of like a handprint, much like Sendak’s illustrations themselves as well as the earth-toned ocean-desert-forest setting used in this movie capture the unique wackiness of Sendak’s monstrous creatures and their habitat. The young actor, 11 year old Max Record who plays the wild child Max has a somewhat closed, thoughtful, sad and sweet face; it is always this shy of doing something unpredictable and already adept at playing complex emotions.  You can see on his face his longing to play with his sister’s friends when he throws snow balls at them. You can see the gears turning inside his head when he comes up with stories of his magical powers to tame the wild things on the island. Jonze and Eggers have touched the soul of Sendak’s little story very lovingly and carefully. The scene where Max sees the wild fires up on the hill where the wild things live from his boat is eerily archetypal–the dream of every traveler lost in an open sea looking for a safe shore to touch land.  I liked the soundtrack as well by Karen O and Carter Burwell; music that both adults and children will enjoy. A good adaptation; go see it please and never send your child to bed without supper. Sometimes they might not make it back from where the wild things are.