The Great Interview Experiment: My Ten Seconds

1. Your blog features lots of beautiful pictures of your handsome dog, Luke. Who is the person behind the camera- you or your husband?

First, thank you so much! What a lovely compliment. Traditionally, I'm the one behind the camera. I've always enjoyed taking photos, but I'm trying to get more into it and learn more about how to take good photos. For my birthday last year, John bought me a Nikon D-80. Right now, I'm still trying to figure out all the bells and whistles on that baby!

Heh. Yeah, we have three cats in addition to Luke. *sigh* The cats have pretty much accepted Luke into their lives (and personal spaces). They seem to tolerate him, but he absolutely adores them. It's very much a case of unrequited love. As for the cats getting along with one another, that part is a constant struggle. Our two male cats absolutely despise our young female cat. We've yet to solve that dilemma, and we've had her for nearly four years!

Hmm, good question. I'll answer this in two ways. In terms of "what were you thinking?!?," I'd pick Sylvester Graham. Graham (the inventor of Graham crackers) was a reformer who was active in the early nineteenth century. His Graham crackers were part of a regimen that he recommended to people so that they could control their sexual urges. I'd want to know why he was so up in arms that people were having sex.

I also see "what were you thinking" in a more positive light as well, and here I'd turn to the Grimke sisters, Angelina and Sarah. They were born into a slaveholding family in South Carolina and grew to become some of the most active abolitionists* of the time. I'd love to ask them where they found the strength to go against not only their family, but also against female mores of the time. They were actually banished from the state and forbidden to return, on penalty of death. Man, I can't even muster the courage to ask the mail carrier to pretty please stop shoving boxes in our mailbox!

4. Do you ever get the urge to grade other people's blog posts?

I find myself fighting that urge a lot more in conversation. I'm always correcting John's grammar, which I'm sure drives him crazy. But when it comes to blogs, I tend not to notice mistakes. I sort of depart from "teacher mode" when I'm reading blogs for fun.

5. As a person aspiring to teach - any advice from the fox holes?

Absolutely! Make sure you love it. Make sure you want to do it more than anything else. Teaching is an incredibly rewarding career, but it's also phenomenally challenging.

6. As a recent former student - do teachers really have favorites, or does it just seem that way?

I don't think that teachers tend to have favorites, but I can see why it's perceived that way. If I have a student who consistently does the reading, comes to class, and participates in discussion, I engage with them a lot more in class simply because we're talking on the same level. If I've got a student who doesn't attend very often, is clearly unprepared, and reads the newspaper during class, there's fundamentally not a lot of back and forth there.

7. Obligatory random question - what article of clothing do you wish would come back into fashion?

Good question! I grew up during the 80s and 90s-- real cringe-worthy decades in terms of fashion, in my opinion. I distinctly remember tight-rolled jeans, white Kends... oh, and those Hypercolor t-shirts. Remember those? They changed color with heat. Yikes. I'm not sure that I'd wish anything back into fashion, honestly!

8. Many of my professors have had phrases or words they never, ever want to see in a paper. (i.e. "just", "stuff", "Per Wikipedia") What phrase or slang term annoys you the most?

Hmm. It irritates me to no end when students refer to a non-fiction monograph as a novel. Oh, and as a history teacher, it drives me up the wall when students use the present tense when writing about the past. "Abraham Lincoln thinks slavery is bad." "Jane Addams is the founder of Hull House. She helps immigrants adapt to America." *shudder*

9. Do your students ever read your blog?

Not that I know of. I try to keep my academic life and my blogging life very separate. A few academic colleagues know about my blog, but not many. I do have Sitemeter on my site, though, so I know when someone in Gainesville finds my blog. I had a moment a few weeks ago when I was in all-out panic mode because I was convinced my advisor had found my blog. By and large, though, I try really hard not to blog about my students, my research, or my academic life.

10. I see you live in Florida, land of gators and haven of spring breakers. What misconception about Florida makes you laugh?

Oh dear. Where to begin? My blog is certainly a testament to the fact that I'm no fan of Florida. I guess the biggest misconception I've found is the notion that Florida is all sunshine and beaches. We live in North Central Florida, an hour from either coast, and it's about the furthest thing from "beach" that you can imagine. "Swamp" is more like it!

11. You've apparently done quite a bit of research in the area of parenthood, but don't seem to have any kids. What drew you to the topic?

You're right that I don't have children. And actually, I'm not the world's biggest fan of little ones, so it's a bit odd that parenthood is what I research. I wrote my MA paper on nineteenth-century children's literature as domestic advice literature for parents. That is, that such literature was not just written to teach children how to be good little boys and girls, but also to teach parents how to parent. That got me thinking about our modern notion of parenting, and where that idea originated. At the same time that this idea was worming its way around in my head, I'd noticed (through reading others' blogs, actually) how parenting conversations can get so heated so very quickly. It's really a hot topic, and that made me wonder if it's always been that way. (Answer: yes.) Once I started tugging at those threads, the idea for my dissertation really started to blossom.

12. I've noticed this research seems to focus on the 1800s. What misconception about the 1800s drives you crazy?

Tee hee! Broadly: the idea that Victorian Americans were prudish and proper. Narrowly: the idea that men were disengaged fathers. I think we still have this conception that colonial fathers were mean, nineteenth-century father were absent (working in the counting house all day and whatnot), and modern fathers are "normal." I think that kind of monolithic conception of parenthood is first, completely flawed, and second, not very realistic. In today's world we have doting fathers, abusive fathers, deadbeat fathers, loving fathers, and everything in between. Why should the past be so very different? (Answer: It wasn't.)

13. What is the best excuse a student ever gave you for not turning their paper in?

Best? Hmm, I'll have to think on that one. Certainly the most common is that they were sick and couldn't turn it in on time, followed by GRAPHIC descriptions of just how sick they were, how much vomit there was, how their roommates thought they were dying, etc. It's pretty comical.

14. Sometimes it seems like professors don't actually read final papers. Were you ever tempted to fill the entire center section of your final paper with nonsense just to see if the professor actually read it?

The final paper phenomenon is a funny one. I think most professors read them fairly quickly because students never come pick them up (so you don't have to write comments on them), and also because grades are pretty much set by then. Many students seem to have this idea that they can get D's for an entire semester and then ace the final and wind up with a B. Mathematically they're probably right, but I've never seen it happen. To answer your question, though, no. I was (and am) WAY too much of a rule-follower to pull a stunt like that! Both of my parents taught at the same university where I did my undergraduate work. I would have been too worried that it would get back to them, somehow!

15. Has a student ever tried to pull this trick on you?

No, thankfully! But I have had students write things like, "In 1968, Native Americans founded AIM, the American Indian Movement. They were instant messaging like crazy!" And I've wondered if things like that were written to make me laugh, or to see if I was still reading.

*Full Disclosure: In the actual interview, I wrote "prohibitionists," which is completely incorrect.

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Posted on February 7, 2008 8:24:29 AM EST #