Tuesday, January 8, 2008

A world turned upside-down?

I have 40 students between Chaucer and Middle English, pretty evenly distributed between the two classes.

Bullock has 27 between his two classes in subjects you might describe as "Life! Liberty! The Pursuit of Happiness!" And "American Issues that Really Matter RIGHT NOW!"

While I want Bullock's enrollments to be better because a) I love him, b) he's a great teacher, and c) his subjects ARE pretty important in an "every American should know this" kind of way, especially in an election year, still, I can't help but say...

Score one for the medievalist!

But to console Bullock, I offer him this song and cartoon about his favorite meat, pork. Actually, you should all go watch this video -- it's hilarious. Warning for the squeamish (or in Karl's case, a heads up): it features porcine cannibalism. (H/T Profgrrrrl.)

9 comments:

Anniina said...

Go medievalist!!

Jeffrey Cohen said...

I like your blog redesign. Had no idea you'd been a guest on Southpark, though: their artists really know what verisimilitude is all about, eh?

Karl Steel said...

Frightening stuff DV. Here's my somewhat more sedate riposte.

Jeffrey, the SP character generator is here. Nokes used to have one up too, yes?

Dr. Virago said...

Yeah, the South Park avatar is a little 2005, but Bullock was doing a class blog and goofing around with it for that, so I decided finally to make one of my own until I find a suitable substitute. (I like your rather crazed snowman, Karl.)

Not all of us can have Andy Warhol silkscreen us as Jeffrey has. :)

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Well, I don't like to brag about that connection, but Andy and I were fairly close until he died. I think he did some kind of a soup can after he screened me as part of his failed Obscure Medievalists series.

Steve Muhlberger said...

How big is that university of yours?

Dr. Virago said...

Steve - well, the university is about 20,000 students, but we have a number of undergrad colleges.

If you're thinking our classes are kind of small, you're right -- both mine and Bullock's are under-enrolled this semester, especially his, and I'm not sure why. Well, actually, Middle English has its largest enrollment ever, but Chaucer has a cap of 30 undergrads and 10 MA students, and the last time I taught it the undergrad spots filled.

Dr. Virago said...

Also, if the post didn't make this entirely clear, we're kind of puzzled why Bullock's classes don't have higher enrollments.

One explanation: our students seem to stick rather slavishly to their majors, and English is a much bigger major than Political Science (his field) here.

Anonymous said...

It's the big secret no one wants to talk about: once students get a taste of it, they can't get enough. Medieval Lit. It's what's for breakfast. My running total on the academic year is now nearly 100 students in straight-up middle English courses.