Irony, sardony, Irene-y, unread

The visiting writer talks with her hands, squeezing an invisible ball as she describes her attempts to put pressure on language. I watch her, mesmerized, glad for an opportunity to sit at a desk like a student and listen for a bit.

But not too long, because those desks are uncomfortable. Even more uncomfortable was the temperature in the auditorium where the writer later gave a public reading. I had the foresight to take a blanket, but it didn't help much. Every day I experience the irony of constantly being urged to cut costs while working in buildings so excessively air-conditioned that we have to huddle under blankets so our lips don't turn blue.

Speaking of irony, why don't we follow Nella Larsen's example and adopt sardony? It shows up in Passing with a footnote claiming that Larsen was the first to use the word in print, but apparently it never caught on. I could dish out sardony every day of the week if there were any market for it.

My students discussed the first half of Passing on Wednesday, and at the end of class I asked them to predict what might happen next. Without fail, their predicted humiliation and doom for Clare Kendry. No one even mentioned Irene. I mean, how could anything significant happen to sweet little Irene? Surely she's just an objective observer of Clare's downfall! I'm eager to see how my students feel about Irene after reading the rest of the text.

I just hope they're actually reading it. Inside Higher Ed featured an article the other day asking "How Much Do Students Really Read?" It turns out, unsurprisingly, that many students prefer not to read their texts but instead watch videos or scan AI-generated summaries. One exception: English majors are more likely to read texts, some completing as much as 75 percent of assigned readings. I pity the English major who reads only 75 percent of Passing--or of Percival Everett's James, which we're finishing in my capstone class today, or Colson Whitehead's Nickel Boys from last semester. The revelation at the end shifts the meaning of everything that comes before. 

What came before that shivery reading by the visiting writer? A discussion of tattoos--namely, the dearth of same amongst English Department faculty. I shocked our students by telling them I have two tattoos but then I had to explain that they're just dots tattooed on my hips to guide the great big clunky medical machine that delivered precision rays of radiation to my innards 15 years ago. Another colleague admitted to having a small fraternity-related tattoo, but the rest of us are woefully unadorned. I proposed that we hold a student competition to design an appropriate tattoo for the entire English department, maybe some memorable words from a text, provided that anyone still knows how to read words (she said sardonically). Then instead of putting pressure on language, we could allow language to put pressure on us.