Academic Freedom and Social Media

So this decision by the Kansas Board of Regents has been making the academical news today: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/19/kansas-regents-adopt-policy-when-social-media-use-can-get-faculty-fired. Basically, it's a policy outlining under what circumstances a faculty member could be penalized, even fired, for remarks made via social media. It is also very vaguely and broadly worded in parts, giving the Board of Regents and university administrators wide discretionary powers when it comes to enforcing the policy. I urge you to read the linked article for a much more detailed breakdown of the policy and the associated debate.

I have to admit, that I am of two minds about this, and it's very interesting that this hits at the same time as the A&E/Phil Robertson news.

Academic freedom is a vital component to higher education, and allows instructors to introduce new ideas and information, challenge existing theories, and develop critical thinking in students. From my own experience I know that part of being a good historian is reading works by scholars whose views you may radically disagree with, not merely to understand the whole of a particular historical debate, but to refine and hone your own thinking on a given subject. It is also important for students to be exposed to differing interpretations, or even to idea which are almost universally considered abhorrent (for example, a class on Nazi Germany might include Mein Kampf  or excerpts from the diaries of Joseph Goebbels in the students' reading assignments. Not because the instructor agrees with Hitler and Goebbels' ideology, but because these are important primary sources for understanding the history of the time and men who made it. Without academic freedom, however, there is a possibility of the instructor being accused of Nazism and of spreading fascist ideology, and being fired because of baseless allegations.) All of that being said, academic freedom has its limits, just as the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Just as inciting people to violence is not protected speech, neither does academic freedom allow instructors to endanger the physical safety of their students or others. Both are examples of common-sensical limits to freedom of action in the public square.

No one is suggesting that academic freedom as currently understood be further limited in the classroom (at least, not in this particular case. That's what the larger push to eliminate tenure in universities is all about). The question is to what extent instructors can be held responsible vocationally for their comments, postings, etc on personal social media accounts. I think most would agree that an employer has every right to set policies on how electronic media provided by and directly connected with that employer are, and are not used. You don't write your state legislatures using your state-provided university e-mail. That's why God gave us personal gmail accounts. You also don't use the University of Wherever's Twitter account to raise hell about the president. Again, you save those gems for your personal account. What the Kansas Board of Regents are doing, however, is to set policy for people's personal, public social media accounts, and honestly, I think maybe they can, and might even ought to.

In response to the push-back against A&E's dismissal of Phil Robertson from future episodes of Duck Dynasty, which is largely (and erroneously) being portrayed as a freedom of speech issue (it's protection from the government, not from private sector employers like cable networks), is that Mr. Robertson freely spoke his mind publicly, many people publicly decried his comments, and the network responded to pressure from its viewers and advertisers (i.e. where their money comes from) and decided to put Mr. Robertson on an indefinite hiatus. Okay, I can agree with all of that. Freedom of speech does not equal freedom from consequences. Yet, if this is true for Phil Robertson, should it not also hold true for academics?

Social media like Facebook and Twitter are inherently public spaces, no matter how savvy you are with your privacy settings, or how discriminating you may be in accepting friend requests or allowing followers. I know way too many people with lots of workplace friends who unhesitatingly rant about work some days, and do so very specifically, rather than just "Whew. Rough day today!" These people should not be surprised if their remarks have some ramifications for them at work the next day. They might have pissed off one of their friends who was involved in the same situation, or their boss, or co-worker, or whoever. Self-editing is a vital social skill, folks, and there's a reason they're called social networks. So if an instructor goes off on some hateful rant on social media and (surprise, surprise) that rant goes a bit viral (don't forget all of those friends of friends of friends who can see your posts and may vehemently disagree with you), then maybe s/he should get pulled up short by his/her employer - just like Phil Robertson was.

When posting on social media, even when using our personal accounts, we are speaking in a public space, where everything we share becomes at least semi-permanent, and we should always be aware of that fact. That doesn't mean that we're not free to say what we wish, it just means that we must always be aware that our speech carries consequences, intended and otherwise. Violentacrez is a despicable human being whose trolling and pornographic postings on Reddit cost him his job, even though his postings took place outside of work, on his own time, and on his own personal accounts. He paid the price for being a sleazeball, and very few folks will weep any tears on his behalf, but just as he had every right to be a sleazeball, society retains the right to react to his nastiness, even in ways which he doesn't approve of. It's not a violation of his rights, its just the consequences of his actions.

The equation works both ways. Mr. Robertson should face consequences for his public statement about homosexuals and African-Americans under Jim Crow, but David W. Guth has to accept the same kind of responsibility for publicly wishing that the next people to die in a mass shooting be the sons and daughters of NRA members. The left (where I usually hang my political philosophic hat) can be as guilty of despicable hate-speech as the right, and deserves to be called upon it just as strongly. Scholars too, are human beings with opinions, emotions, knee-jerk reactions, and prejudices, and when those things become hate-speech, libel, or outrageous vitriol in public forums like social media - then, yeah, they deserved to get called on it, and to face the consequences.

By the way, even if you are right, if your speech has every ethical and moral precept known to history backing it up, you are still open to the consequences of that speech - good and bad. Better people than us have spoken truth publicly and paid terrible prices for doing so, even when we today find their positions self-evident and proper. No one is exempt - ever. It behooves all of us to think before we speak, and when we do speak to be prepared to face the consequences that arise from our words.

D-Day + 69 Years

Today is 6 June 2013. Sixty-nine years ago today, American, British, Canadian, French, and Polish forces joined in the largest amphibious assault in human history, coming ashore along the Normandy coast of France. Here in the US, we tend to view the Normandy landings as a primarily American affair, and to sound solemn tones of national triumph and unity. In tooling around social media today, I've seen lots of pictures of Higgins boats disgorging American soldiers who rush bravely into the water, and a few old propaganda films celebrating the invasion as the turning point of the war. What strikes me about these memorials is their bloodlessness. I think, perhaps, that while we celebrate the heroism of the young men who went ashore 69 years ago, we should also remember the cost behind those sanitized images:

Wounded American soldiers at "Omaha Beach" on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

Over 45,000 Allied soldiers died that day, and over 173,000 were listed as "wounded or missing in action." The survivors would move inland, and into almost another full year of war which would see replacement rates in some front line American regiments top 1000%.

The sacrifice of these men (often terribly young - Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in US history, was all of 19 years old when Germany surrendered in May of 1945) is almost incomprehensible. Despite our romanticized memories of World War II, the vast majority of American soldiers were draftees, and their memoirs reveal little or no mention of the flag, nationalism, or the Four Freedoms, but a tremendous emphasis on their comrades in arms, on day-to-day survival, and on a heartbreaking longing just to make it back home alive and mostly whole. Even when physically whole, many were deeply wounded with 3 million American veterans coming home from World War II with some form of neuropsychological disorder, which all too often went unrecognized and untreated.

The thing to remember about these men is that they were not supermen, not even necessarily "the Greatest Generation" of Americans. They were just people, men and women from all across the country, from all economic backgrounds, from all levels of education. African-Americans fought for democracy abroad while Jim Crow ruled at home. The Japanese-Americans of the 442 Regimental Combat Team made their unit the most highly decorated regiment in the history of the US Army while their families were imprisoned in concentration camps in the California desert. Navajo code-talkers risked everything for a nation that had forced their people onto reservations. Tens of thousands more regular American kids left their lives and homes for the most horrific conflict in the entirety of human history and fought and suffered and died with astonishing bravery and courage in spite of their all too human fear. Not because they were imbued with some kind of super-patriotism, but often simply because the shortest way home was through the enemy.

These young folks were us, and a few of their descendants carry on their tradition today in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I suspect these modern men and women also think more about their buddies and getting home than they do anything else, and they still fight, suffer, and die for both. So today, step back from the flag-waving and bloodless black and white stills for a moment and remember the reality of what these people endured, and not just in Normandy and France, but also in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Southern France, Tarawa, Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Okinawa, and Burma, among too many other places made into Hell on Earth between 1936 and 1945. Take the time too to remember the young men and women from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Poland, France, and the Soviet Union who fought beside us, and died in their millions.

General William T. Sherman noted not only that "war is hell," but also that "war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." Remember today the young men who endured that hell and cruelty, and who inflicted the same on those who took them from their homes.

On Meth Mondays

Okay, okay, I'm a stupidhead.

There's been no "Meth Monday" for two weeks now, and also no explanation for its absence. Unfortunately, what I'm about to write is the explanation. In a perfect world, all I would do is write, go to cons and conferences, and play with Mockingbird (and not necessarily in that order), but it's not a perfect world. Currently I have all of four weeks left in my first semester of graduate school. In those four weeks, I have to produce three research papers totaling some seventy-five pages of original research. Since I'm a stupidhead (see above), I have more work to do on those papers than perhaps I should this close to the end of the semester. All is well, however, and the work will get done, but it does mean than my writing energies and attention pretty much have to be focused solely on those papers for the next month.

Therefore, "Meth Monday" will be taking a brief hiatus until the second week of December, when weekly installments will resume. In the meantime, follow me on Facebook and Twitter for links to the latest Breaking Bad stuff that comes across my screen, and be sure to visit my co-author's blog Unfettered Brilliance regularly for her updates on new films, Breaking Bad, and all sorts of good stuff. I will also try to post here, but it is likely to be short and linky, and irregular.

On a final note, Wanna Cook? The Unofficial Companion Guide to Breaking Bad is on schedule to be out in the spring of 2014 from ECW Press, after Season 5 has wrapped up and probably around when the "Complete Series" Blu-Ray/DVD/Whatever packaging is hitting the shelves as well.

So be well, and I'll see you back here for "Meth Monday" on December 17!

Speaking Out, Speaking Up!

Jeez! Where the hell did all of this dust come from? I mean, I know I haven't posted here since... um... March. Waaay early March. Still, how does server space get dusty?

Okay, okay, I'm a lousy blogger lately, but I plead personal stupidity in taking on too many projects all at once. I'm also pretty sure that I won't be posting regularly here for at least another month or so, but we'll see. Wanna Cook? The Unofficial Guide to Breaking Bad is coming along nicely. We're turning notes into prose and our editor at ECW Press seems to like the sample pages we've sent her way. Unfortunately from a fan perspective (yet fortunately from a writing deadline perspective), AMC has announced that it will be splitting the final 16 episodes of Breaking Bad into two mini-seasons, airing eight episodes beginning July 15 this year, and the final eight in the summer of 2013. So, it looks like Wanna Cook? won't be hitting stands until the very end of 2013 at the earliest, and most likely not until the spring of 2014.

In other news, I've been awarded a B.A. in History from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, graduating summa cum laude (yay!), and I'll be entering the Master's program in history at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, TN in the fall. Currently I'm working on knocking out the first draft of a chapter on Marvel's The Avengers, written and directed by Joss Whedon, for the upcoming edited colection A Joss Whedon Reader. It's a short deadline, but I'm really enjoying the project and the film has me firing on all fan-scholar cylinders.

Also, as most of you know, North Carolina, where Mockingbird and I make our nest, passed Amendment One to the State Constitution on May 8, a "Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State." We worked hard against this amendment, not least because it's just not right to write discrimination into our state's constitution, but also because it is stupidly written law which could dramatically and negatively affect all unmarried couples in NC. Anyway, we lost, but the people in my state who were politically "activated" to oppose this issue have refused to disband and disappear. We're all determined to keep fighting for civil rights for all citizens, and to speak out against discrimination and hate.

Which brings me to Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, NC (NOT to be confused with a church of the same name in Charlotte, please!). If you haven't heard Worley's deal, here's the sermon, on Mother's Day no less, which has got me and some 1000 other people driving up to Newton tomorrow to protest using the pulpit to preach hate:

Now, Worley and his congregation are going to be meeting at an undisclosed location out of town tomorrow, thus demonstrating the strength of their convictions, and we are going to gather with like-minded folks on the lawn of the Catawba County NC Justice Center in Newton to protest hate speech, particularly hate speech which has been despicably presented as being the word of the Christian God. Which it ain't. Mock and I will be there with a these signs:

You can even come and join us if you want! For more information check out the Protest's Organizational Facebook Page, but please, if you do come, familiarize yourself with the code of conduct we're going to be abiding by:

Click To Enlarge

So, remember: we lost a battle in NC, not the war, and people like Worley are not representative of my state. And if you decide to come to Newton tomorrow, look Mock' and me up. We'll be the ones with the signs! ;)

General News and Something to Remember

Well Readers Mine, it's been a couple weeks again, but they've been busy ones, and I must warn you that today is not the day when you'll see a substantive new post here, but expect a new Book O' the Fortnight by week's end.


So what's been going on? Well, last week, Mockingbird and I celebrated our birthday (we have the same one, you see. Different years, but the same day) with a series of dinners, many cool presents, and by sleeping in until 11 and enjoying the extra snuggle-time. Meanwhile, school has cranked back up for both of us, me on one side of the desk, and she on the other, which also means the commuter marriage has resumed, and I am once again feeling the growing suspicion that my real permanent address is Interstate 85. So it's been the usual round of quizzes, exams, assigned readings, short papers, figuring out topics for long papers, etc, but this is the last semester I'll be facing those particular tasks -- at least in an undergraduate setting. Graduate school applications are all out and I should start hearing from a couple of the schools as early as the end of this month. (Crossed fingers, prayers, and good vibes are all welcomed and encouraged!)

The Avengers coming May 4, 2012

Of course, amongst all of this normal stuff is work on Wanna Cook? The Unofficial Guide to Breaking Bad, which is proceeding well, but in the re-watching and note-taking phase is somewhat time-intensive (as I expect the writing will be as well). Still, so far the project is a lot of fun and my co-author and I are having a blast analyzing and critiquing the episodes over the phone almost nightly. I also have the paper for the Fifth Biennial International Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses coming up in Vancouver in July, for which I have, for the first time ever, applied for a passport. And finally, just yesterday I was presented with an offer that I couldn't refuse in the opportunity to write a brief essay about The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon, for the forthcoming The Essential Whedon Reader from Syracuse University Press. So many incredible opportunities have come my way this year! But the plate, Readers Mine! The plate, she is very full!

Between school deadlines and writing deadlines, I expect to be something of a rapidly typing recluse from mid-April to mid-July, in which time all of the various deadlines fall. It is doable, but you can see that I'm going to be a bit busy in the coming months. (By the way, if anyone ever tells you that writing is not really working, politely take them out back and hit them in the head with a shovel, because they are obviously insane and therefore likely a danger to themselves and others.)

Here's the thing, though: I am going to be incredibly busy doing something that I love and that I have wanted to do since I was 10! I got sidetracked for several years along the way, but I'm here now, and finally following Joseph Campbell's incredibly sensible advice: "Follow your bliss." Not to mention that I'm doing a good chunk of it in the company of an incredible woman and partner (who also happens to be the love of my life) who feels exactly the same way.

When things get a bit overwhelming, it is good to remember this last part -- and to give thanks.

Thank you.

Equality

My wife and I live in North Carolina, where the state's General Assembly has whipped up a referendum to change the state constitution to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. Of course a law stating the same thing is already on the books, so what the GA is trying to do with the proposed amendment is to make it more difficult to challenge that law through judicial review. I'm pleased to report that that many people in my state are speaking out against this amendment, and against discriminatory marriage laws in general. On a statewide level, Equality North Carolina is working hard, and I'm delighted to report that another group, Neighbors for Equality, has sprung up in a little town near my home whose biggest claim to fame is a private Baptist university. Neighbors for Equality is currently running their Twelve Days of Equality campaign, where ordinary citizens are asked to speak out against "Amendment One" and for equality. My wonderful wife is a part of this campaign, and has also been speaking out on her blog, and I am, as usual, so extremely proud to be married to such an incredible person. It's a shame that everyone in my state isn't allowed to experience that kind of pride... Yet.

Catching Up A Bit

Okay, it’s been more than a while since I’ve posted here and I’m sorry for that, but to be fair I did warn you that this semester the blog might get few and far between. Fear not, though, I’m still kicking!

In NOLA, plotting a bit of the ol' ultraviolence.

To briefly catch up, the PCAS conference in New Orleans was an absolute blast, and Mock’ and I managed to eat our way through the French Quarter with some fantastically smart, fun, and funny friends whom we see far too rarely. Our presentations went off well, and we enjoyed a nice long weekend together away from all of the usual routines. I’m not sure what it says about us that having someone come into the room and make the bed while we’re gone, and replace all of the towels we’ve thrown into the bathroom floor with freshly laundered ones feels like luxury bordering on decadence, but it does, and we enjoyed every minute of it. For more details, head on over to Mockingbird’s professional blog, Unfettered Brilliance, for her NOLA wrap-up as well as a look at the ongoing Great Buffy Rewatch and her Intro to Film class.

In school news, classes are going very well, and I’m pleased to announce that the GRE is done with and my scores look to be pretty good, all told. Now to start cranking out the applications! I’ve also been expanding my “new media presence,” which translates into setting up a Twitter account. You can follow me there as @EnsleyFGuffey, should you be inclined to internet-stalk me. The Farscape paper has been submitted, approved, and is in my pile of stuff to do awaiting some tweaking, and so you can look for my chapter, “War and Peace by Woody Allen Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wormhole Weapon” in Tormented Space, Uncharted Territories, and Wormhole Weapons: Critical Explorations of the Farscape Universe, edited by Sherry Ginn from McFarland and Co. in early 2013. Pretty groovy, huh?

There are some other plates spinning and some I’m in the process of trying to get spinning, but that covers all the highlights for now. Now that my schedule seems to have produced a relatively clear space for a bit, I’ll try to make up for some lost time here, Readers Mine, with a few posts in the coming week, starting out with some reviews of what I’ve been reading and watching recently. The reading has been pretty good, the watching (at least when it comes to movies) not so much. Until then, be well.

Goings On

Well, there’s a Latin exam tomorrow, but I’ve spent four days studying for it, and believe I’ve reached the point of diminishing returns, which, with other homework being done, leads me here. It’s been a busy couple of weeks since my last post, Readers Mine. School is rolling along, and there is an ever growing stack of books threatening to overflow my shelves on everything from Samuel Colt to the Late Roman Republic to the Alhambra and Moorish Grenada to the cuneiform tablets of Sargon II. There is much reading still to be done, followed by much writing. Also test taking.

Samuel Colt

First up (aside from the aforementioned Latin exam) is the Popular Culture/American Culture in the South Conference, which is being held in New Orleans in October. I’m presenting a paper which uses the character of Sam Colt in Supernatural as a springboard to examine the historical Samuel Colt and his place and part in American popular culture. I hope to have that written by the end of this weekend. Good thing too, as the conference falls right before UNCG’s fall break, meaning that all of my midterm exams, papers, etc need to be finished and turned in before I head south, so I’ll probably need all of next week to gear up for that. The up-side, of course, is that I can enjoy the conference and the city with a pure heart unburdened by looming assignments.

Ed, Spike, Faye, and Jett

And one hell of a conference it promises to be! Along with the usual PCA/ACA crowd, the first LOST mini-conference will be held, featuring the one and only Nikki Stafford as keynote speaker. I’m looking forward to the whole shebang, not merely for the usual crop of great papers, but for the all too rare opportunity to catch up with friends from hither and yon face-to-face rather than by Facebook or e-mail. Mockingbird and I are both going, as usual, and she will be unveiling the first part of a look at the influences of Cowboy Bebop on Joss Whedon’s Firefly. Part II she’s saving for Slayage 5 in Vancouver next summer.

Gigi Edgley as Chiana

After the conference I’ll have two and a half weeks before taking the GRE, by which point the application process needs to already be rolling along. I am seriously hoping that I manage to get accepted into a school where I can go straight through to a doctorate, as applying for school is one of the more tediously stressful things in life. Almost as much so as applying for jobs. Along with graduate school applications, there will still be regular undergraduate work to be done, and also, sometime before the end of the year, I should be seeing my Farscape chapter come back to me with notes for revision. It’ll also be time to start the research for my own paper to be presented at Slayage 5, which reminds me, the deadline for proposals there is 1 December!

Like I said, busy semester.

In other news, the GOTP (Grand Ol’ Tea Party) is gleefully fucking up my home state of North Carolina through a series of legislative actions which have gutted the education budget, set women’s rights back by a few decades, and now they seem to think that putting civil rights up for a popular vote is sensible (which it is, assuming your goal is to deny a minority group its civil rights). My hope is that the conservative movement has overreached at last, and that the fine people of North Carolina will stand up, throw the bums out, and tell the next bunch of “representatives” that we’re looking for frakin’ jobs, not laws that make things harder on all of us. Jackasses.

Finally (for now), it seems I'm precognitive. If you are not watching Breaking Bad, you are missing a masterpiece of storytelling, and film. Don’t let the fact that its television fool you, this is something special. It’s on AMC. Watch it, bitch!

Ave Minerva!

Well, it’s the end of August again, which means back to school for yours truly. I begin what is hopefully my last year of undergraduate study early tomorrow morning, and in most respects it’s stacking up to be a good semester. I’m only on campus Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, which leaves Tuesdays and Thursdays as workdays, which has proven to be a very effective arrangement in the past. It’s amazing what you can get done when you don’t have to go anywhere, see anyone, and have a coffee pot in your room. I’ll be living with the in-laws again and driving about forty minutes each way to good ol’ UNC-Greensboro, where Athena continues to watch over me.

As usual I’ll start out my day with Latin, and this semester I’ll follow the noble language with Spanish history, ancient Near Eastern history, and an independent study on the rise of Augustus and the establishment of the Principate in ancient Rome. Heavy on the history, but that is the major, after all. Plus, thanks to some long semesters earlier and summer classes, I only have to take twelve hours each of these last two semesters, so the work load should be doable.

That’s the school workload, of course. Beyond school, I’m lucky and excited to be involved in several writing projects. First, I’m working on finishing up a chapter for a forthcoming edited collection on the US/AU/UK science fiction series Farscape where I’m examining the show’s story through the lens of military-political history. Next comes a paper on Samuel Colt in fact and fiction to be presented at the Popular Culture/American Culture—South conference in New Orleans in October, and then beginning/stepping up the research process for Slayage 5 in Vancouver next July, where I hope to present the first in a series of papers on “War in the Whedonverses.” Finally (for now) I’m proud, flabbergasted, and downright giddy at being asked to serve as an assistant editor to David Lavery for a forthcoming project on the life and works of Owen Barfield.

Beyond all of that there’s studying for and taking the GRE. Getting together writing samples, letters of recommendation, applications, transcripts, etc to send off to prospective graduate schools, and dealing with a “commuter marriage” after a wonderful, too short summer season in which Mockingbird got me used to all of the myriad pleasures that come with sharing the same nest all the time (including co-authoring a post for Nik at Nite's Buffy Rewatch which goes up Tuesday!). One does what one has to do, of course, and all of this driving and separation is leading to a goal which will allow us to keep said nest well-feathered, but I do miss her, Readers Mine.

All of which is to say that, if you think posts here have been few and far between this summer, you may very well have not seen anything yet. I’ll try to pop in regularly, but I guarantee there will be times when other elements of life will be taking priority. In the meantime, though, be well and remember, as Jeff Bridges’ mom said “Have fun, and don’t take it too seriously.”