Tomorrow It Begins, First of Three PhD Qualifying Exams

May 31, 2010

Tomorrow, I will take the first of three PhD qualifying exams. The first will be the longest at five hours on 20th-century American literature. Thursday, I will take my postmodern theory exam, which will take four hours, and next Monday, I will take an exam on Philip K. Dick’s writings, also four hours.

It’s storming right now, but luckily the power went off after a lightning strike for only a few minutes. I was stressing about charging my iPod and printing out a copy of my reading list.

Our lights are back on, the reading list is printed, and my iPod is now charging. I feel as ready as I ever will be. I just need to wash my water bottle, assemble a snack kit, and get some rest.

Here I go!

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Posted by Jason W Ellis

Call for Pledges on Kickstarter: Masood Raja’s Coffee Shops and Real America

May 27, 2010

Have you heard about kickstarter.com? It’s a website that facilitates funding, patronage, and investment in creative projects. A project’s creator sets the level of funding that is needed and a date that the funding is needed by. If the funding isn’t met by a particular date, then the project does not get funded.

I have some ideas that I have been kicking around that would be kickstarter worthy, but in the meantime, check out Masood Raja’s latest book project titled Coffee Shops and Real America [book info here and kickstarter page here] and consider helping him on his way to making the book a reality. He’s already received pledges from three people, but he could use your support, too. You have until July 11 at 8:00pm to get some thanks and bonuses for helping the memoir happen.

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Posted by Jason W Ellis

Early 2008 MacBook, CPU Load, Loud Fans, and Adobe Flash

May 26, 2010

Yufang has since my previous post on this problem continued to have problems with anything related to Adobe Flash on her Early 2008 MacBook. Today, I decided to test out a hypothesis that I had regarding Flash. On many forums, Windows users with Flash don’t report the heavy CPU usage and subsequent fan cooling reported by some Mac users (including Mac users with a MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Pro). This and Adobe’s lack of transitional support for Creative Suite into Cocoa (until CS5) led me to believe that Flash for Mac OS X was not optimized for the Mac OS X platform. The underlying hardware on both Macs and PCs are essentially the same now, so the differences are now between the OS architecture and the way Flash is built to run on the two different OSes. Considering that both Windows XP SP3 (Yufang owns a copy of this) and Mac OS X Leopard (what I last installed on her machine as a test to solve this problem) use roughly the same amount of CPU power according to process monitors and neither under normal operating circumstances cause the fan activity to spike with increasing CPU utilization, it seems that Flash is the independent variable.

With this in mind, I ran Boot Camp in Mac OS X 10.5, and installed Windows XP SP2, setup the wireless connection, upgraded to SP3, installed 73 critical updates, installed AVG Anti-Virus, installed Firefox, and installed Adobe Flash. Before trying out web Flash problems, I thought I would try it with one of her Big Fish Games, which immediately drives up CPU use and activates fan activity on Mac OS X. On Windows XP SP3, the same Flash game–one version compiled as a Universal Binary for Mac OS X and the other compiled for the Windows platform–runs more efficiently on Windows than it does on Mac OS X. I define efficiency as requiring less CPU activity to perform the same amount of work. On Mac OS X, that game requires more CPU cycles and more operations to run the same game that requires less CPU cycles and less operations on Windows.

My suspicion is that Adobe didn’t optimize Flash for Mac OS X. Flash has always been a pain on Mac, even in the old days, but it would seem like a company like Adobe that launched itself on the Mac platform would have done more to make their software work well on Mac. It seems like all that money Adobe makes on their overpriced software could have trickled down to end user software that didn’t waste CPU power and drain batteries unnecessarily.

A more thorough analysis of this would be necessary to pin this on Adobe unequivocally. Windows XP handles threading differently on a Core 2 Duo processor than does Mac OS X, which could cause a problem for certain software, particularly non-optimized software, on each OS. I don’t know to what extent that Vista or Windows 7 would change the results. I didn’t try Windows 7, because I didn’t want to use my unopened copy yet. Yufang has Windows XP, which has a smaller code base than Windows 7, so I figured it shouldn’t have as much overhead as Windows 7 would despite the supposed architectural improvements to the newer OS.

The bottom line is that I’m saying that the ball is in Adobe’s court. As it now stands, I wholeheartedly agree with Steve Jobs that Flash is a big mess on the Mac platform. When Jobs went on the record saying that recently, he wasn’t saying anything new. All of us Mac users have known that for a long time, and it’s been a problem that we’ve been waiting for Adobe to address for a very long time. Though, I’m glad that Apple has the clout to potentially swing things to HTML5 and H264, at least for online video.  It’s up to Adobe if they want to make an insanely great product that can compete with a (more–patent issues aside) open alternative.

In the meantime, Yufang will use Boot Camp to switch between Windows and Mac so that she can use her software without it overheating her computer and creating fan activity that detracts from her ability to use her MacBook altogether.

1 Comment | Personal, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis

Protect Your Online Privacy and Take the Battle to Facebook’s Turf

May 23, 2010

All of the recent explosive disclosures about the changes to Facebook‘s privacy policy–something that has been an ongoing and procedural erosion of our privacy (see here for a graphical representation of the changes) by acceptance of their terms of service and privacy policy changes–had begun to make me think strongly about quitting Facebook all together. It can be a time wasting website, and it can give you too much information about some folks who you don’t really want to know that much about. However, it allows you to reconnect with old friends, and more importantly, stay connected with professional colleagues. It is primarily for this latter reason that I have decided to stay on Facebook and take the fight to their turf. The reason that Facebook is so insanely popular is that it facilitates social networking and communication in a a very streamlined and generally snappy website. There are no other players on the near horizon that can do the things that Facebook does that I can switch to and bring all of my friends and colleagues with me. I have pitched my tent in the Facebook frontier, and I intend to fight for my tiny share of profile space and the inroads that I and my friends have made there. It is a good land with a lot of possibilities that I don’t want to give up on just yet. I know that we can use Facebook and protect ourselves, but we will have to be proactive and ever vigilant to the changes instituted by Facebook that may conflict with the way we want to use the service and the way Facebook may take advantage of us using their service. Also, I should note that I have no problem with Facebook making a buck off of my using their service, but I believe that I should not be made into a commodity rather than a potential consumer (via ads, add-ons, etc.). Give me respect as a person, and I will be happy to play ball. As it is now, Facebook sees me and my information as so much stuff to be bought and sold, so I am offering the following tactics (there’s some de Certeau for you guys in the know) to fight back against Facebook’s strategies.

  1. Suit up with an updated version of Firefox. Then, go to Preferences > Privacy > Uncheck all except Clear History when Firefox Closes. Click on Exceptions for Cookies and manually add the domains for the sites that you want to accept cookies from (Facebook might not be one of those sites you want to list).
  2. Yield a mighty sword: Install AdBlock Pro. Inside Firefox, go to Tools > Add-Ons > Search for AdBlock Pro and choose to install it. After installing and restarting Firefox, click on the ABP icon in your navigation bar and choose preferences. Click on Filters > Add Subscription > Choose EasyList to add, and then add Fanboy’s List. You will also want to manually add the following filters one-by-one:
    |http://*.connect.facebook.*/*
    ||facebook.com^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net
    ||facebook.net^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net
    ||fbcdn.com^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net
    ||fbcdn.net^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net
    [Thanks to Andrew and pfc.joker's comments on Lifehacker for these.]
  3. Store your gear when you’re not using it. When you’re not using Facebook, make sure that you logout. This is probably a generally good rule of thumb when it comes to other sites accessing cookies saved by your web browser.
  4. Secure your stable door. This is where you adjust your Facebook privacy settings. First, go to Account > Privacy Settings. Here, you need to go through each page and adjust the settings. Personal Information and Posts > Set to Friends Only for all. Contact Information > Friends Only (you can allow Everyone to add you as a friend or contact you, but hide your email addresses by setting to Only Me). Friends, Tags, and Connections > Friends Only. Search > Uncheck Allow Public Search. Applications and Websites > What Friends Can Share > Uncheck All. Applications and Websites > Instant Personalization > Uncheck Allow.
  5. Clean up your stable. This is where you cut the new “Connections” that enable the flow of information between you and your friends to companies that Facebook sells your info to. Navigate to your Profile > Info. You have to leave your basic info, but you want to remove all of your interests, likes, education, work info, etc. You may also want to go into your photos and profile pictures and delete anything that you don’t want circulated (this is just good sense). You can use your bio to include the parts about you that you want people to know about. I only include SFRA and IAFA in my Likes and Interests, because these are professional affiliations that I use Facebook for.
  6. Ride off on a new adventure. If you’re really fed up with Facebook, you can create a new account and reconnect with your friends. There is a procedure to follow for this that you can find on Lifehacker here. They also have a nice set of 10 privacy tweaks that will generally improve your privacy online here.
  7. There be dragons in every cave and a troll under every bridge. The important thing to remember is that for every new and creative way of protecting our information and online identity from exploitation, there are corporations out there looking for equally inventive ways to make a buck on the information that we make freely available. Even our browsing habits can be tracked according to the way we configure our web browser (read about a project by the EFF regarding this on Slashdot here). You have to educate yourself about how your software works, and how you can use it to be prepared for unexpected onslaughts against your privacy. Check in on the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Read Slashdot.org. Lifehacker is good (even though its part of Gawker), and BoingBoing.net has some good info along with other wonderful things.
  8. Leave your own tips and favorite electronic privacy links in the comments, and let’s let Facebook know how we feel about their new policies before more of our online rights are eroded by big business.

3 Comments | Pedagogy, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis

Book Announcement: Constructing Pakistan: Foundational Texts and the Rise of Muslim National Identity, 1857-1947

May 22, 2010

Masood Ashraf Raja, my friend and co-editor of The Postnational Fantasy (tentative title) with me and Swaralipi Nandi, has just had his book Constructing Pakistan: Foundational Texts and the Rise of Muslim National Identity, 1857-1947 published by Oxford University Press. The full details from here are included below. Also, check out Raja’s writings on his new blog, Postcolonialities: Postcolonial Theory and Critical Pedagogy, and don’t forget to read his journal (that I copyedit) Pakistaniaat.

Book Description

Constructing Pakistan addresses the previously neglected aspect of postcolonial and historical engagement with the creation and construction of Indian Muslim national identity before the partition of India in 1947. Masood Ashraf Raja’s main assertion, challenging the conventional and postcolonial appraisals of the Indian national history, is that the Indian Muslim particular identity and Muslim exceptionalism preceded the rise of Congress or Gandhian nationalism. Using major theories of nationalism-including works of Benedict Anderson, Anthony D. Smith, John Breuilly, Partha Chatterjee and others-and analysis of literary, political, and religious texts produced by Indian Muslims, Constructing Pakistan traces the varied Muslim responses to the post 1857 British ascendancy. This study provides a multilayered discussion of Indian Muslim nationalism from the rise of post 1857 Muslim exceptionalism to the beginnings of a more focused struggle for a nation-sate in the 1940s.

In this dual act of retrieval and intervention, a varied mixture of literary, political, and religious texts are employed to suggest that if the Muslim textual production of this time period is read within the realm of politics and not just within the arena of culture, then the rise of Indian Muslim nationalism can be clearly traced within these texts and through their affective value for the Indian Muslims.

Raja states that no such work exits either in the postcolonial field or in the field of area studies that combines close readings of the texts, their reception, and the politics of identity formation specifically related to the rise of Indian Muslim nationalism. The author’s main argument hinges on two important assumptions: 1) After the rebellion it becomes extremely important for the Muslim elite to force the dominant British regime into a hegemonic view of the Muslims, and 2) this forces the Muslim elite to develop a language of politics that must always invoke the people in order to enter the British system of privileges and dispensations. Consequently, the rise of early Muslim exceptionalism and its eventual specific nationalistic unfolding, of which Pakistan was one outcome, can then be read as political acts that long preceded the Indian national party politics. The reason most Indian and European historians cannot trace a pronounced Muslim sense of separate identity before the 1940s is because they trace this identity either in the form of resistance or in the shape of party politics. The early loyalism of the Muslim elite, in such strategy, remains unexplained, as it does not fit the resistance model. Constructing Pakistan attempts to re-read this loyalism as a sophisticated form of resistance that, in the end, makes the Muslim question central to the British politics of post-rebellion era.

Publication Details

  • Hardcover: 182 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press,  2010
  • ISBN-10: 0195478118
  • ISBN-13: 978-0195478112

To Order:

In Pakistan: Oxford Website.

Amazon. com Link

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Posted by Jason W Ellis

Reading List for PhD Minor Exam on the Works of Philip K. Dick

May 19, 2010

In June 2010, I will take my three PhD exams in the Kent State University English Literature PhD program.  For these exams, I convened a committee of trusted professors, each administering one exam. I choose to take my exams in these areas: 20th Century American Literature (administered by Kevin Floyd), Postmodern Theory (administered by Tammy Clewell), and the Philip K. Dick Canon (administered by Donald “Mack” Hassler). Below, I have included my Philip K. Dick reading list. Go here to read my Postmodern Theory exam list, and here to read my 20th Century American Literature exam list.

PhD Minor Area Exam:  Philip K. Dick’s Fiction and Non-Fiction, and Critical Works

Director:  Donald “Mack” Hassler

Novels by Philip K. Dick, organized by date of composition.

  1. Dick, Philip K. Gather Yourselves Together.  1950.  1994.
  2. —. Voices from the Street.  1952.  2007.
  3. —. Vulcan’s Hammer .  1953.  1960.
  4. —. Dr. Futurity.  1953.  1960.
  5. —. The Cosmic Puppets.  1953.  1957.
  6. —. Solar Lottery.  1954.  1955.
  7. —. Mary and the Giant.  1954.  1987.
  8. —. The World Jones Made.  1954.  1956.
  9. —. Eye in the Sky.  1955.  1957.
  10. —. The Man Who Japed.  1955.  1956.
  11. —. The Broken Bubble.  1956.  1988.
  12. —. Puttering About in a Small Land.  1957.  1985.
  13. —. Time Out of Joint.  1958.  1959.
  14. —. In Milton Lumky Territory.  1958.  1985.
  15. —. Confessions of a Crap Artist.  1959.  1975.
  16. —. The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike.  1960.  1982.
  17. —. Humpty Dumpty in Oakland.  1960.  1986.
  18. —. The Man in the High Castle.  1961.  1962.
    2009/12/2
  19. —. We Can Build You.  1962.  1972.
  20. —. Martian Time-Slip.  1962.  1964.
  21. —. Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb.  1963.  1965.
  22. —. The Game-Players of Titan.  1963.  1963.
  23. —. The Simulacra. 1963.  1964.
  24. —. The Crack in Space.  1963.  1966.
  25. —. Now Wait for Last Year.  1963.  1966.
  26. —. Clans of the Alphane Moon.  1964.  1964.
  27. —. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.  1964.  1965.
  28. —. The Zap Gun.  1964.  1967.
  29. —. The Penultimate Truth.  1964.  1964.
  30. —. Deus Irae.  1964.  1976.  (Collaboration with Roger Zelazny).
  31. —. The Unteleported Man.  1964.  1966.  (Republished as Lies, Inc. in 1984).
  32. —. The Ganymede Takeover.  1965.  1967.  (Collaboration with Ray Nelson).
  33. —. Counter-Clock World.  1965.  1967.
  34. —. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1966.  1968.
  35. —. Nick and the Glimmung.  1966.  1988.
  36. —. Ubik.  1966.  1969.
  37. —. Galactic Pot-Healer.  1968.  1969.
  38. —. A Maze of Death.  1968.  1970.
  39. —. Our Friends from Frolix 8.  1969.  1970.
  40. —. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.  1970.  1974.
  41. —. A Scanner Darkly.  1973.  1977.
  42. —. Radio Free Albemuth.  1976.  1985.
  43. —. VALIS. 1978.  1981.
  44. —. The Divine Invasion.  1980.  1981.
  45. —. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.  1981.  1982.

Short Fiction by Philip K. Dick, needs elaboration by individual stories.

  1. The Philip K. Dick Reader.  1997.
  2. Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities:  The Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick.  Eds. Patricia S. Warrick and Martin H. Greenberg.  1984.

Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick.  2002.

Non-Fiction by Philip K. Dick

  1. Dick, Philip K.  “The Android and the Human.” Vector:  Journal of the British Science Fiction Association 64 (March/April 1973):  5-20.
  2. —. The Dark Haired Girl.  1988.

Critical Works

  1. Fitting, Peter.  “Ubik:  The Deconstruction of Bourgeois SF.” Science Fiction Studies 2:1 (1975).  19 October 2007 <http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/fitting5art.htm>.
  2. Haney, William S. II. Culture and Consciousness:  Literature Regained.  Lewisburg:  Bucknell University Press, 2002.
  3. Kucukalic, Lejla. Philip K. Dick:  Canonical Writer of the Digital Age.  New York:  Routledge, 2009.
  4. Mackey, Douglas A. Philip K. Dick.  Boston:  Twayne Publishers, 1988.
  5. Palmer, Christopher. Philip K. Dick:  Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern.  Liverpool:  Liverpool UP, 2003.
  6. On Philip K. Dick:  40 Articles from Science-Fiction Studies.  <more information>.
  7. Sutin, Lawrence. Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick.  New York:  Carroll & Graf, 2005.
  8. Suvin, Darko.  “P.K. Dick’s Opus:  Artifice as Refuge and World View.” Science Fiction Studies 2:22 (1975).  19 October 2007 <http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/suvin5art.htm>.
  9. Vest, Jason P. The Postmodern Humanism of Philip K. Dick.  Lanham, MD:  Scarecrow Press, 2009.
  10. Warrick, Patricia S. The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980.
  11. —.Mind in Motion:  The Fiction of Philip K. Dick.  Carbondale and Edwardsville:  Southern Illinois UP, 1987.

3 Comments | Kent State, Personal, Science Fiction | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis

Reading List for PhD Minor Exam in Postmodern Theory

May 19, 2010

In June 2010, I will take my three PhD exams in the Kent State University English Literature PhD program.  For these exams, I convened a committee of trusted professors, each administering one exam. I choose to take my exams in these areas: 20th Century American Literature (administered by Kevin Floyd), Postmodern Theory (administered by Tammy Clewell), and the Philip K. Dick Canon (administered by Donald “Mack” Hassler). Below, I have included my Postmodern Theory reading list. Go here to read my 20th century American literature exam list, and here to read my Philip K. Dick exam list.

PhD Minor Exam Area:  Postmodern Theory

Director:  Tammy Clewell

Texts:

  1. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation.
  2. Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air.
  3. Bertens, Hans. The Idea of the Postmodern:  A History.
  4. Broderick, Damien. Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction.
  5. Bukatman, Scott. Terminal Identity:  The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction.
  6. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter.
  7. de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life.
  8. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus:  Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
  9. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology.
  10. Eagleton, Terry. The Illusions of Postmodernism.
  11. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Volume 1:  An Introduction.
  12. Habermas, Jürgen.  “Modernity: An Incomplete Project.”
  13. Haraway, Donna. Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©Meets_OncoMouse™: Feminism and Technoscience.
  14. —. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.
  15. Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity.
  16. Hassan, Ihab. The Postmodern Turn.
  17. Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics.
  18. Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide.
  19. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction.
  20. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism:  Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
  21. —. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions.
  22. Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern.
  23. Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition:  A Report on Knowledge.
  24. McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction.
  25. Norris, Christopher. What’s Wrong with Postmodernism?
  26. Perryman, Mark ed. Altered States: Postmodernism, Politics, Culture.
  27. Poster, Mark. The Information Subject.
  28. Vattimo, Gianni. The Transparent Society.
  29. Wilde, Alan. Horizons of Assent: Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Ironic Imagination

2 Comments | Kent State, Personal | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis

Reading List for PhD Major Exam on 20th Century American Literature

May 19, 2010

In June 2010, I will take my three PhD exams in the Kent State University English Literature PhD program.  For these exams, I convened a committee of trusted professors, each administering one exam. I choose to take my exams in these areas: 20th Century American Literature (administered by Kevin Floyd), Postmodern Theory (administered by Tammy Clewell), and the Philip K. Dick Canon (administered by Donald “Mack” Hassler). Below, I have included my 20th Century American Literature reading list. Go here to read my Postmodern Theory exam list, and here to read my Philip K. Dick exam list.

PhD Major Exam Area:  Twentieth-Century American Literature

Director:  Kevin Floyd

Texts:

CANONICAL

  1. Chopin, Kate. The Awakening (1899).
  2. Cather, Willa. O Pioneers! (1913).
  3. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper”
  4. TS Eliot: “The Waste Land,” “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock”
  5. Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio (1919).
  6. William, Carlos Williams. Spring and All (1923).
  7. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby (1925).
  8. Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury (1929).
  9. Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying (1930).
  10. Langston Hughes: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”; “Epilogue”; “Harlem”; “Same in Blues”; “Theme for English B”; “Mother to Son”; “Song for a Dark Girl.”
  11. Countee Cullen: “Yet Do I Marvel”; “Heritage”; “Incident.”
  12. Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms (1929).
  13. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937).
  14. Dos Passos, John. The Big Money (1936).
  15. Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath (1939).
  16. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).
  17. Wright, Richard. Native Son (1940).
  18. Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).
  19. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman (1949).
  20. Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye (1951).
  21. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man (1952).
  22. Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time.
  23. Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
  24. Eugene O’Neill, Long Days Journey Into Night
  25. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
  26. Ginsberg, Allen. “Howl” and “Kaddish.”
  27. Kerouac, Jack. On the Road (1957)
  28. Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch (1959).
  29. Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun (1959).
  30. Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962).
  31. Plath, Sylvia. Ariel.
  32. Pynchon, Thomas. V. (1963).
  33. Sam Shepard, True West
  34. LeRoi Jones, Dutchman (1964)
  35. O’Connor, Flannery. “A good man is hard to find”; “everything that rises must converge”; “revelation”; “good country people”
  36. Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness (1969).
  37. Reed, Ishmael. Mumbo Jumbo (1972).
  38. Delany, Samuel R. Dhalgren (1975).
  39. Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony (1977).
  40. Gibson, William. Neuromancer (1984)
  41. DeLillo, Don. White Noise (1985).
  42. Morrison, Toni. Beloved (1987).
  43. Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills
  44. Roth, Philip. American Pastoral (1997).
  45. Updike, John.  Rabbit, Run
  46. Butler, Octavia. Kindred (1979).
  47. Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex (2002).
  48. Vonnegut, Jr., Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).

NON-CANONICAL

  1. Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot (1950).
  2. Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles (1950).
  3. Kornbluth, Cyril M. and Fredrick Pohl. The Space Merchants (1953).
  4. Ellison, Harlan.  “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967).
  5. Tiptree, James Jr. (Alice B. Sheldon), “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (1973).
  6. Delany, Samuel R. Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)
  7. Sterling, Bruce ed. Mirrorshades:  The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986).
  8. Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash (1992).
  9. Powers, Richard. Galatea 2.2 (1995).
  10. Di Filippo, Paul. Ribofunk (1996).
  11. Cunningham, Michael. Specimen Days (2005).

4 Comments | Kent State, Personal | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis

Amazing Sunset Picture Captured on My iPhone

May 16, 2010

After dinner tonight, Yufang and I saw this sunset hidden behind the Kent State University library and other buildings on campus. It was so beautiful that I wanted to save it on my iPhone knowing I would share it will you all later. The pink radiance at the center of the sky surrounded by the imposing dark blue makes me feel calm and peaceful. Besides the pleasant colors, it might have just been my baby’s company.

2 Comments | Kent State, Personal | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis

Are These the Droids You Were Looking For?

May 10, 2010

Perhaps you could use two new droids? We’re doing some spring cleaning, so we’re listing stuff on eBay including WALL-E and EVE from the Disney/Pixar film.WALL-E U-Command is a fully interactive and controllable robot that sings, dances, and follows your combo stringed commands. Interaction EVE is an interactive robot that you move around, but she responds to your voice, sounds, and movement. Both are fun little robot friends, and they are eager to see a slightly less rubbishy world than they had to deal with in the film.

Click the links below to see the auction descriptions. Shipping is available worldwide.

WALL-E U-Command Remote Control Robot

Interaction Eve from WALL-E Interactive Robot

Leave a Comment » | Personal, Science Fiction | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis

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