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We had a couple of essays a week, but three in a week seems egregious.
Haus - I don't think Matt has three essays in a week, I think he has three in a term, set at the beginning and due at the end of term. Some places/departments stagger essay deadlines and don't have all work due in at the end of term, but then the students are liable to complain that they have a smaller choice of essay questions (I can't do this question on Joyce b/c the seminar on Joyce is after the deadline! etc.) There's no ideal solution, I don't think. Not that this thread is for solutions! No! It is for headsick! And rage!
Hence.
Two days of stress and panic and working flat out to get a lecture on French feminism written. Skip lunch in order to spend five solid hours on the day of the lecture perfecting the four-page annotated bibliography and the Powerpoint presentation. Show up to lecture room to find that the PC cabinet is locked. Eventually track down AV person, who explains that there is only one key to the cabinet in existence, and it's usually in the lock, and she thought this was probably going to happen eventually. Begin lecture 10 minutes late and without any quotes, since they were all on the Powerpoint. Do lecture from memory, on stonking fear/adrenaline/lack-of-food high. Discover that all French second-year undergraduates find the words phallus, penis, and vagina almost intolerably funny. Lecture on phallogocentrism for fifty minutes over the sound of sniggering teenagers. Finish brilliant explication of the textual basis of French feminism and its difference from Anglophone feminisms centred on the politics of representation, with particular reference to the term ecriture feminine. Immediately get confronted by three posh, entitled, hostile students saying We have to do our presentations on Monday on Marguerite Duras and I just don't see the relevance of your lecture. Point out gently that if they GO TO THE LIBRARY, to the shelf where the FIFTY books on Marguerite Duras are, they will find one ENTITLED Ecriture feminine: une etude de Marguerite Duras, and perhaps this will be relevant. Point to the bit on the annotated bibliography where the books entitled Feminist Literary Criticism and labelled Good introductory books are. Students dig heels in and continue to blame me for not actually spelling out which pages of the set text they should relate to which passages of French feminism, including asking the question "Was Marguerite Duras a feminist writer then?" Because of course you wouldn't bother finding out anything about the topic of your presentation before demanding the lecturer WRITE IT FOR YOU.
OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO READ A BOOK IN THE COURSE OF YOUR HUMANITIES DEGREE YOU LAZY BASTARDS.
Also, the heating has been off all weekend here and it's incredibly cold. I'm going to the library. |
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