Pleasure Reading vs. Academic Reading

The beginning of the new school year is almost upon us. So, I thought it might be useful to remind students and colleagues that not all reading is the same.

Reading for pleasure is not the same thing as reading for learning, intellectual development, critical thinking, and/or application. For most folks, pleasure reading is defined by enjoying a plot, identifying the main character or (in the case of non-fiction) learning some cool facts. Pleasure reading rarely entails note-taking or even doing anything with the text other than stacking on a shelf.

Academic or professional reading is different. First off, you need to determine the expertise of the writer, the book's likely audience, and the nature of the book (is it a romance novel or a scholarly treatise?). Next, you need to identify the book's goals, its topic, its main thesis, and its general structure. Once you have a good overview of the book, then you need to evaluate the evidence (how was it collected and evaluated), analyze the writing quality, identify the writer's assumptions, and consider if the evidence and the assumptions support the general conclusion. You also might need to look at how the ideas developed and how the author relies on tradition.

To get the most out of an academic or professional text, most folks need to take notes, highlight key passages, jot down how to apply an idea to an example, note important phrases or quotations, and even identify places where you have questions for the author and/or disagree with him/her. There are a range of academic books and a similar range of goals when reading academic/professional books. You may need to evaluate the idea it presents or apply the idea to future examples or cases. For many humanities classes, evaluating an idea is a key skill. For social science, natural science, and professional courses, much time is spent on learning to apply concepts and skills to the field.

Whether reading a philosophical treatise or textbook on accounting, students will need to "read with a pen" and highlight key parts of the text by putting them in your own words. Increasingly, I am encouraging students to "brief" readings or learn how to summarize them in a page for future use. No matter one's job or profession, one will need to keep updated on the literature and it will be crucial to possess the reading skills to get and apply new concepts and facts. Teachers focus on reading because it is a key way to develop the intellectual, analytical, and critical thinking skills and habits students will need once they leave the university.

The longer I am involved in teaching the more I think that we need to develop a new word to describe academic or professional reading. The lack of specificity makes what we do in education unclear and confuses folks about what we are asking our students to do. Moreover, it breaks the link between reading the kinds of habits of mind we are trying to foster among our students. Academic or professional reading is not the idle passing of eyes over words but engaging in critical and analytical thought.

By differentiating between pleasure and academic/professional reading, students and their professors are more likely to meet their goals this semester.

Regional vs. National Tastes in Hip-hop

I have spent the summer reading a few books on Southern Hip-Hop, including Roni Sarig's Third Coast and Ali Neff's Let the World Listen Right. Last spring, I got a chance to read some books about West Coast style too. One thing that comes out in those books is the intense regionality of hip-hop and how local sounds shaped artists in particular places. None of this will be surprising to hip-hop fans. It is interesting to see how scholars and writers mimic this regional debate as Sarig and Neff spend considerable time defending Southern hip-hop to show that hip-hop has always been deeply connected to the South via rapping and other vernacular practices and how crunk has come to dominate hip-hop in the last decade.

My own journey in hip-hop started out pretty traditionally with an East Coast bias in the 1980s and 1990s (while living in Chicago) and then slowly shifting toward a more academic approach as my research into hip-hop required me to listen more broadly than ever before. While hip-hop itself has "always" been a way for folks to articulate regional/local identities, I realize that this has not been my situation or my interaction with hip-hop. Listening to hip-hop has never been a local or regional affair for me. As a result, I guess I am less interested in reading or arguing about the origins of hip-hop or deciding which region is more authentic or better. Rather, I am curious about how scholars can usefully approach these dividing lines. The first waves of hip-hop scholarship has been intensely local, defending regions, artists, and labels.

I am wondering if Jazz studies and the competing claims of New Orleans, KC, Oklahoma City, Harlem, Chicago, and later LA. in regards to jazz will prove a useful analogy for hip-hop studies. From my vantage point, it seems like Jazz has transcended some of its original regionality as the music became less popular and the audience aged. What happens to hip-hop and hip-hop studies when the historical, cultural, and socio-economic forces that shaped it no longer hold? What will happen to the regional lens we currently use to view hip-hop? By the end of Sarig's book, for example, the artists of some locations - particularly Virginia Beach - move around so much that I am not sure how regional the music remains. The same could be said for the journey began in Atlanta by Outkast, Goodie Mob, and other folks from the ATL. Is regionality an essential feature of hip-hop or something that will go the way of Adidas shoes and Kangol hats?

What Music Goes Best with 100 Degree Heat?

After walking/jogging 3.5 miles in the 100 degree Missouri heat and humidity, I have determined the following artists work well in the heat and humidity:

• Aceyalone
• Aesop Rock
• Blitz the Ambassador
• Jason Moran
• Steely Dan
• Immortal Technique
• Shy D

I am only luke-warm (sorry for the pun) about the following artists:

• Dinosaur Jr.
• Van Morrison
• Barry White
• Indie Arie
• Brother Ali
• Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

These artists CANNOT handle the heat and the humidity:

• Bruce Springsteen
• Talking Heads
• Kanye West
• Red Garland
• Wynton Kelly
• Jeff Watts

Don't say I did not warn you!

Critical Race Theory, Nelly, and How Law Still Aids and Abets Racial Bias

Nelly has created controversy before with his "Tip Drill" video but a recent controversy in Branson shows how folks can use law and other administrative maneuvers based on what appears to be racialized motives. According to a local news story (see http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100728/NEWS01/7280441/Appeal-for-outdoor-Nelly-show-rejected), the local government rejected a number of permits to have the outdoor concert. From what I can tell reading the articles while this drama has unfolded, the main issues under discussion are noise, traffic, parking, and space. There may also be an issue regarding non-union musicians here as Nelly and his band are not members of the local musician's union. However, it certainly appears that hip-hop, the likely age and race of the audience, and people's preconceived notions about hip-hop also seem to be playing the biggest part.

There are three salient points that critical race theorists have been making for a while-

(1) Hip-hop acts still struggle to negotiate the business end of live music and there is certainly a much greater cost for them to do business than other music acts. Everything from getting insurance to getting permits seems to cost more money for hip-hop acts.

(2) It appears that hip-hop is being used as a proxy for race. Many participants (especially the comment section to the article) seem to assume that a hip-hop concert will bring in a primarily or even exclusively black audience and that this audience will likely cause trouble.

(3) It appears that local business leaders are using facially race-neutral rules to enforce a de facto ban on hip-hop and to attack what they presume will be an unusually racially mixed crowd for Branson.

While none of this is surprising, it is disappointing to see this happening in my own backyard.

Recent DMCA ruling & Electronic Frontier Foundation Victory

A recent Fifth Circuit ruling held that circumventing technological protections does not violate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act if the user was engaged in otherwise permissible things with the text/object, such as time-shifting or educational use of quotations. (See http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/07/23/29099.htm for an article about the case). Because I have not yet read the full opinion, I am skeptical that - despite the optimistic headlines - that the Supreme Court will agree. I certainly would anticipate that this ruling will be appealed and the copyright industries will do whatever they can to lessen the impact of it.

I would urge similar caution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's victory regarding jailbreaking and video-remixing. (See http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/26). Again, we will see if these victories are permanent or only temporary. I am skeptical that there will not be some sort of lobbying effort to overturn this decision. In the meantime though, I urge all you film makers to get out there and get your critical documentaries out now while you can!

Adult Contemporary Hip-Hop?

There is a thought-provoking article at allhiphop.com (http://www.allhiphop.com/stories/features/archive/2010/07/22/22306569.aspx) about the rise of "Adult Contemporary Hip-Hop." I like it as I think it speaks to how hip-hop and its audience is evolving. Even if the early days of hip-hop were not how people like to imagine them, they are quite different than today. For one, folks like Jay Z and Eminem have way too much market power and too much of a built-in audience to simply fade away as did earlier generations of hip-hop artists. Plus, they can spend some of their millions to record and distribute albums even if they tank. Same thing with the Roots, now that they have their perch on the Jimmy Fallon show, they are simply too well-known and too commercial to be anything other than adult contemporary hip-hop (and I really like the Roots). Even groups like A Tribe Called Quest and/or Q-tip can count a pretty hard-core nostalgic following (I know I bought Tip's latest cd). It also doesn't hurt that a large number of their audience are now in the late 20s and early 30s (if not older) and likely have more disposable cash (even with the recent recession) than those same people did 20 years ago. All the recent retrospectives on hip-hop at Vibe, VH1, BET, and other places certainly help create/solidify a middle-aged audience.

While article does not mention it, the fact that the second wave of hip-hop stars have turned 40 also matches with how a number of hip-hop icons, from Chuck D and Harry Allen to KRS One and Ice-T have been talking at college campuses for over a decade. I remember seeing Ice-T in the late 1990s and noting how his ground-breaking moment has past. Similarly, hip-hop has completely infiltrated the academy with lots of books and courses about it. Certainly, hip-hop or anything changes once that happens.

Given my own argument that much in hip-hop is ironic, I hope that the growing recognition of hip-hop's adult contemporary audience (of which I am probably a member) produces a shift of sorts about how scholars, journalists, and even the stars themselves talk about the music and the culture. It's a good piece, check it out!

The Purposes of General Education?

Because Drury has been engaged in a revision of its general education curriculum for awhile, I have been thinking on and off about the purposes of "general education." Without doing a thorough literature review, it seems like there are (at least) three competing ideas about general education.

The first concept is focused on achieving intellectual excellence. To me, this seems to be the oldest form of general education (probably borrowed from the Greek philosophers among others) and one that is focused on critical thinking, communication, finding one's place in the world, and developing the traits and habits of an educated person. Some might be tempted to term this the wisdom approach to general education. If this still exists in the contemporary university, it seems to exist in required seminars for students.

A second concept seems more rooted in the Enlightenment and modernity and is focused on possessing the requisite knowledge of the world. I think of this as a more modern approach because it assumes a fairly stable and masterable amount of knowledge in the world. I also think this version dominates universities and has shifted from common curriculum to a more menu-drive approaches.

The last approach is focused on the skills that students need for the careers (or what Andrew Mills calls the can-opener approach to education). This is frequently tied to service or experiential learning programs as they both "engage" students and provide marketable skills for students. While such experiential and service projects contain the rhetoric of active and applied learning, I guess I am a bit skeptical how much can be achieved if students lack wisdom or knowledge.

In a nutshell, the concept of general education seems to be on a journey from wisdom to knowledge to professional skills. I am not sure what to make of this evolution. Philosophically, this certainly bothers me as I like the concept of universities teaching wisdom and the right kind of habits or dispositions. However, as a practical matter, that does not seem what students or employers want. If colleges (like any other business) do not give people what they want, we cannot force people to pay for and attend the "right" kind of college and then the more traditional colleges will simply go financially bankrupt.

I am beginning to think that if general education merely becomes associated with basic professional skills, then we might need to abandon the concept altogether.

On the bright side, most decisions at colleges and universities are more political than philsophical. As a result, we will likely to see hybrid models that try to do a bit of each of these things. I guess I will need to focus my energies on the parts that focus on wisdom or knowledge