Post Academic

Hey, look, Footnotes is back one more time before 2010 enters the digital dustbin of history.  Just to remind you, “Footnotes” is supposed to be a semi-regular series that collects some stories and postings that are semi-relevant to the semi-academic focus of the blog…which, of course, means the latest on James Franco.

"Bill Nye" by Ed Schipul (Creative Commons license)

If Bill Nye falls at USC and everyone is Tweeting about it…: That’s the riddle of what happened about a month ago, when Bill Nye the Science Guy collapsed on stage while giving a lecture at USC.  The only things not in question are that Nye fell and a bunch of USC students Tweeted about it in real time.  What’s in dispute is whether any folks actually tried to help Nye, if they did so fast enough, if USC kids are particularly obnoxious, or if their hands were full Tweeting the news.  The initial assumption, based on a report from one outraged student, was that the latter happened, fueling the kids-these-days-and their-newfangled-technology meme that we’re happy to participate in — after all, who’s not surprised by the alleged bad behavior, especially anyone who’s taught an auditorium full of students texting, listening to their iPods, checking their email, so on?  In fact, the last word on the matter was a LA Times “On the Media” column which focused on netiquette instead of trying to resolve the question of whether or not anyone did help the Science Guy.  Talk about going meta, a news story about news stories about Tweeting about what actually occurred.

Another Indie Rocking Academic: During the summer, we put together a Post Academic Overeducated Rockers Virtual Music Fest.  Well, we have another addition to the lineup, Blake Schwarzenbach, one-time frontman of influential, almost-made-it-big proto-emo punks Jawbreaker.  According to our friend Jane (thanks for the tip!), Schwarzenbach is an English grad student studying British Romanticism and teaching at CUNY Hunter — check out what he says about his MA Thesis on Shelley, which prompts a response in the comments thread about someone’s thesis on Andrew WK and the Romantics.  When you think about it, the emo-Romanticism connection would make a lot of sense, huh?

Another James Franco Update: What “Footnotes” doesn’t include a little something something about James Franco?  The latest is that the world’s most famous grad student will be hosting the Oscars — hopefully, the awards show coincides with his spring break at Yale?  He was also  just featured on “Inside the Actors Studio”, which apparently drew its largest crowd ever.  Did anyone watch the interview and see if he had anything to say about being in grad school?