I can't believe I wrote all that last year.
Acephalous

Friday, 07 May 2010



Because I've been grading all damn day and am as tired as a Swearengen of hearing
other about the finished semesters of pretty much every other academic blogger,
I thought that it might be best to avoid jealously lashing out and scribble a
"Best of Acephalous 2009" post. However, when I started
looking through my archives, it occurred to me that my output this year defines
me much more sharply than in years past. What do I mean? 
The posts I consider foundational to my current professional identity all seem to
have been composed in 2009. Granted, the likelihood that I'm suffering from the
identitarian equivalent of presentism is awfully high, but I honestly thought
I'd written some of the posts from early 2009 in 2006 or so. (It may also be
that I remember the scene of their writing, which would have been in the old
apartment, i.e. the place I barely remember ever having
lived in anymore.) If you have absolutely nothing better to do on a Friday
night, feel free to scan through my 2009
archives and tell me what you think should be included in the "Best of"
post. 
If you do have something better to do, though, by all means do
it . 

Posted at 05:50 PM




Comments


Why is someone so young not having fun with friends on a Friday night.
Granted grading papers is important, but no fun makes for a boring life. I
should know. /since, when I was your age I had fun playing with my adorable
son and caring for another baby. You need to try to have a life outside your
computer. Just saying....it seems I have more life now then you have and we
know how little I get out!
 Posted by: alkau | Saturday, 08 May 2010 at 10:11 AM 


 The one that really stuck in my mind was explaining transitions in the panels of Watchmen . I'd
read Watchmen a short while before and appreciated its narrative complexity,
but not being used to reading comics, hadn't registered all the technical
tricks that the artist was using to achieve this. The post not only taught
me something about the grammar of such images, but more importantly led to
me realising that there is a grammar to look for in the first place. So
thanks a lot for that one.
 Posted by: magistra | Saturday, 08 May 2010 at 03:05 PM


SEK, I started going through your back posts and noticed a pattern in my
selections, so I think it would be easier (for me, because I'm rubbish with
html) to just say all the scene analysis posts and the close reading comics
posts, like the one Magistra mentioned and many others after that. Plus
Justifying Comics as a Legitimate Object of Study Parts I & II. I also
liked "Teaching the Overdetermined Image." Your takedown of Cashill and the
whole Ayers-wrote-Dreams was excellent, and the Cruel_cruel_death post (you
know what I'm talking about, right?).

Also, The Day in Actual Communist and Real Nazi History seems as relevant
today as ever.
 Posted by: Caio | Saturday, 08 May 2010 at 06:49 PM



Agree with the previous two comments. I don't remember if you've made noises
here before about turning these into a book, but if you do you've got at
least one reader.
 Posted by: Martin Wisse | Sunday, 09 May 2010 at 01:19 AM



What happened to your post that appeared in my RSS reader yesterday?
 Posted by: tomemos | Sunday, 09 May 2010 at 09:16 AM




Would it be possible to arrange your posts into three 'parties', and give
your many readers the opportunity to 'vote' for one of them, by 'secret
ballot'? I feel your British readers would appreciate that.
 Posted by: Adam Roberts | Sunday, 09 May 2010 at 10:57 AM