Goya: Deafness, Madness, and More

The sleep of reason produces monsters

There have been a few films and television shows made about Goya.   One such film is Goya--oder Der arge Weg der Erkenntnis (1971, Dir. Konrad Wolf).  Another is Goya in Bordeaux (1999, Dir. Carolos Saura).  Most recently made seems to have been  Goya's Ghosts (2006, Dir. Milos Forman and staring Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem, and Stellan Skarsgård). 

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828) is regarded as the most important Spanish artist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Over the course of his long career, Goya moved from jolly and lighthearted to deeply pessimistic and searching in his paintings, drawings, etchings, and frescoes."  Goya became extremely ill at one point in his adult life, and this illness caused him to become completely deaf (some say the illness and resulting deafness have to do with his licking his brushes, which were coated with lead-filled paint). 


Recently, I was on the Videophone with Iosif Schneiderman, who wants to produce the third of his plays (one which was done with Willy Conley) about the deaf painter Francisco Goya. It is the deafness (and madness) that I believe attracted Schneiderman and Conley to this painter's life.  I have begun to develop my own fascination--partly because of the play I saw, done by Scheiderman and Conley, a couple of years ago.

The play featured mime and gesture, very little (if any) sign language of any kind (and certainly no spoken language).  There were sounds--music, thunder, even vibrations generated under the audience seats, and there were lighted special effects as well.  Then there were the masks...all designed by Schneiderman.  I would LOVE to produce a play of this kind with him!

* * *

Here's my experience of the 2nd play, GOYA en la Quinta del Sordo (in the House of the Deaf Man) previously done by Iosif Schneiderman and Willy Conley (with acting students of Gallaudet University).  Originally published in another (dead) blog as "In the House of Some Deaf (Mad) Men" by Deaf Directions (by me); reprinted here with permission.

Long ago, in the early days of silent film, when it didn't matter if an actor was deaf and/or mute, the Russian filmmaker Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein explored creating films that could "speak" to everyone, rising above language barriers because that film, theoretically, would have a "universal language". Eisenstein was not the first to dream about a universal language, nor was he the last.


Move back a couple centuries and consider, for example, the "dream" etchings by the Spanish artist, Francisco de Goya (1746-1828). Goya was a highly successful painter who, in his mid-40s, suffered the sudden loss of his hearing (as a direct result of lead poisoning from the paints he used). Goya spent the second half of his life creating drawings of various types that critiqued Spanish society "in images and characters existing in all their life-affirming contradictions, like the characters in a Shakespeare play, or in the novels of Balzac" (Paul Stuart). In one series of etchings, the Los Caprichos, this brilliant artist tried to create a "universal language" that "would encourage men and women to reflect on the world and their roles and actions within it."

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 Now come forward in time again to NOW, and to the inspirations of two Deaf playwrights, one Russian and the other American, and the resulting play that is perhaps not of universal language, but--as a performance of gestures (visual, audio, even tactile)--this is certainly a play of universal communication. Co-authors Willy Conley and Iosif Schneiderman, explored an adaptation, or even a translation, of Goya's works into the play, Goya en la Quinta del Sordo (in the house of the deafman).

I saw this play, TWICE, and I can't wait to tell you more about it. So the focus of the next several blogs (over the next few days or weeks or whenever-I-find-the-time-to-write) will be a "show and tell" of these two performances, AND of the roughly one hour video interview Conley and Schneiderman allowed me to tape (with the interpretation help of Sarah Blattberg). For now, I'll just end this blog entry with this: Goya: en la Quinta del Sordo (in the house of the deaf man) is currently under consideration for the national festival of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival! 

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To see more information about this production, visit Gallaudet University's Theatre Arts page.

PART TWO: "The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance."

Xtranormal: "One Professor's Fantasy"

"Yo, Dr. Smith! Do you have a second?" 
"Of course!"

Recently, I received a letter from the Provost of Kent State University (where I work), informing me that he has approved my application for Faculty Professional Improvement Leave (Fall 2011). What does that mean? Well, it is true that the old term that used to be used for this sort of thing was sabbatical, one meaning for which is "a period of rest" (Dictionary.com) -- which rather sounds like I just got approval to party for an entire semester, doesn't it?   Wroooong!  Still, many of my students seem to think that it is some sort of vacation or "free time" off for "good behavior" (a kind of get-out-of-jail card). 


I think I have a pretty good idea about the attitudes of my students. There are those who are "non-tradition" (older and/or working and/or parenting children) who are in college to gain better employment. There are those who are currently enrolled because they don't know what else to do and can't find a job. There are those who are in college because their parents said that they must go. There are the best of students and the worst of students. However, it is the worst of students (as well as the worst of teachers and professors) that usually stand out and are best remembered.

 "Yo, Dr. Smith! Do you have a second?" 
"Umm, right now?"

MOST of my students are NOT like this!  However, I can honestly say that, while I've never had a single student pull all of these manipulative stunts (particularly not all at once), I have had students pull variations of each. (I also have to say that I don't talk to students in this manner; I'm a professional.)  Such experiences of professor-student struggle are amusing, at best; however, the apparent increase in such incidents seems to be indicative of the nature of the current college level population, particularly those within the population (the majority) who are of the typical (18-25 years of) age.    


Who is to blame for such negative attitudes among students?  One "study says college isn't for everyone" -- pointing out that the increase and/or maintenance of current student populations at universities and colleges is more indicative of the need for more money (as federal and private support has drastically decreased over the last several decades) than of a true, internal drive of individuals desiring higher education.  Another study argues that, today, there is "limited learning in college," and another suggests that the problem is caused by "a lack of rigor" (NPR).   Still another points out that the most important "things" aren't taught in school, at any level ("The 10 Most Important Things They Didn't Teach You in School").  

Regardless of the cause, I believe it is this negative attitude, a fundamental lack of respect for scholarship in general, that feeds the notion that a sabbatical is equivalent to play time.

Another definition of sabbatical is more appropriate, and it perhaps why Kent State University has changed the title altogether to include the words "professional improvement." This secondary definition involves a break from teaching, but not a break from work; it involves training, research and other forms of self-improvement relevant to the job of instructing within the realm of higher education. Indeed, in the approval letter, I am instructed to generate a "Summary Report of the activities undertaken during the leave," as well as to provide "an up-to-date copy of [my] curriculum vita," which implies that "the short and long term outcomes of the leave that [I] am about to begin" will be closely evaluated. Now, some might say that this kind of leave is already granted annually, during the summer months; however, I am not paid for working in the summer--by contract, my salary is a 9 month salary. Still, I do work in the summers: in addition to teaching extra classes (to help build up my salary), I also use the time to do research (a leave without pay) in order to generate the scholastic conference presentations and publications expected of me.

 "Yo, Dr. Smith! Do you have a second?" 
"That depends...."
Let me tell you all the things I'm going to be doing between May 2011 and January 2012: 
WORK: NOT A PART OF THE SABBATICAL

• Teach four online classes (3 College Writing II, 1 Colloquium in Women's Studies).
• Edit a film, tentatively entitled Listening to You, Listening to Me, Listening to Everyone: A Community Theatre Deaf/Hearing Experience, which is about the 2009 production of Willy Conley's play For Every Man, Woman and Child--a modern morality play inspired by EVERYMAN (published in the anthology of his plays, Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays). 
• Finish a couple of articles I started writing last summer.

WORK: A PART OF THE SABBATICAL

• Increase my American Sign Language skills.  I will take the SCPI (Sign Communication Proficiency Interview) at the end of this semester's work. There are eleven levels of skills to this test: No Functional Skills, Novice, Novice Plus, Survival, Survival Plus, Intermediate, Intermediate Plus, Advanced, Advanced Plus, Superior, and Superior Plus. Informally, I have been told that my skills are currently in the Intermediate to Advanced range. My goal is to test for a score of Advanced Plus or Superior.
• Work on my book, tentatively titled, Signs of Motion: The Kinetics of Meaning in Deaf/ASL Poetics, Silent Film, and Medieval Texts.  I have a goal of completing three chapters and the introduction.

 "Yo, Dr. Smith! Do you have a second?"
"Right now, I don't even have a millisecond!" 

Now, it is true that I will be paid extra for teaching those summer courses--at a reduced rate from the regular year's pay.  It is also true that the other work (the film project and the articles) will eventually, hopefully, help me acquire promotion and/or merit pay.  (And, too, the film project is just downright fun.)  However, I can tell you right now that I will be very, very busy finishing all of the above: I've listed a lot of work to be done 8 months!  And the work for the sabbatical is expected of me, for my job, especially the book.

So, yes, I'm looking forward to resting from teaching (during 4 of those 8 months), but I'm also looking forward to working to accomplishing these projects. 

Any questions?
   
 "Yo, Dr. Smith! Do you have a second?"
"When I return, I will have all the time that you need." 

"The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance."

I got a little note from my fortune cookie this week.  It wasn't a fortune; it was a declaration: "The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance."  Those who would exploit and take away from others depend upon that fact.  Those who teach: well, I believe that they fight that exploitation every day.  Knowledge is power.  Learning is power.  Some folks do not want many to have that power.

My life is a life of teaching, but it is not the same as the life of teachers.  Teachers have a different type of employment (not easier, not harder--not the same).  The pay for teachers is not always less than the  pay for professors; however, it usually is, and this makes sense to me: the degree requirements for becoming a teacher are less than the degree requirements for becoming a professor.  Regardless, good teachers are not respected nearly enough.

As a professor, I am not really a teacher: I do not have the same discipline challenges that high school, middle school, and elementary school teachers have.  I may have discipline challenges, but they are different.  Teachers work with children (of various mental capacities) and their parents.  Professors work with adults (of various ages and mental capacities).  The difference, however, in terms of outcome is the same: intellectual growth (tied to emotional growth and other forms of growth).

So, when I read an article such as  Michael Winerip's "For Detroit Schools, Hope for the Hopeless" in The New York Times, I have to wonder at what we have taught people to understand about the nature of teaching.  Mr. Bobb is an example of someone who clearly needs to go back to college, if not to high school.  Having converted Detroit's public school system to a charter school system, in order to save money, Mr. Bobb has found that he "has set off a vicious cycle undermining even good schools.  The more schools he closes to save money, the more parents grow discouraged and pull their children out.  The fewer children, the less the state aid, so Mr. Bobb closes more schools."  Mr. Bobb, if you were in my class, I would fail you for poor logical thinking and planning. 

However, I am actually afraid of Mr. Bobb.  Mr. Bobb was hired by the governor of Michigan  at an annual salary of $425,000.00 to reduce the Detroit School district's $200,000.00 deficit.  Mr. Bobb's solution was to turn public schools into private charter schools, closing many schools and firing many teachers.  Did his solution work?  No.  That deficit has now gone up to $327,000.00.  What if the governor of not-quite-yet-so-poverty-stricken Ohio decides to hire Mr. Bobb, or someone like him, to run both school districts and universities--turning them all into private institutions? 

This is the least of my worries.

I have a lot of worries.  I worry about the struggles in North Africa--and when will Gadhafi be driven out of power?  I worry about Japan and New Zealand and Haiti--to name just a few of the areas suffering under major natural disasters.  I worry when elected officials (no matter how minor) say that disabled and mentally ill individuals should be shipped off to Siberia because they are "defective" (Matthew Descmond). I worry that equal rights between men and women in the workforce (all over the world) has become a muted and ignored issue, so muted that people like Daniel Craig have to perform gimmicks to gain attention for the farce of unequal pay that still exists today.

I worry about senators,  and especially the House Speaker, spending so much time and energy to ban gay marriage when there are so many, many REAL issues out there to be solved.  Why hold a "war" on people for being who and what they are; why deny anyone such basic civil rights?  And why did that crazy congressman in Georgia want to introduce a bill that would make getting an abortion "human prenatal murder" and to even prosecute women who suffer miscarriages (see "Rep. Bobby Franklin Might Hate Women More than He Hates Gays")?

Above all, however, I worry about the way that the rich--and those bought in order to work for the rich--are picking upon the not-rich (the middle class and the impoverished). There is  battle between the elite rich (be they in the United States, Libya, or elsewhere) exploit the over-worked poor.  They do not want a Middle Class--that level of income and affluence is just too hard for them to control--or so they think.  (See, for a humorous twist on one aspect of this issue, The Daily Show's skit, "Crisis in Dairyland--For Richer and Poorer--Teachers and Wall Street.")    I thank one of my colleague's for posting a link on Facebook to an article that reminds us of how bad things were 100 years ago, and how bad they still are today.  Almost 100 years ago (March 25, 1911), the Triangle Waist Company, caught fire and nearly 150 workers (most of whom were Jewish and Italian immigrant girls ranging in age from their teens to their early twenties) died.  According to Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen, "...the deaths clearly demonstrated that companies like Triangle, if left to their own devices, would not concern themselves with their workers' safety," and that, today,  "...we still hear much of the same rhetoric whenever reformers seek to use government to businesses to act more responsibly and protect consumers, workers, and the environment" ("The Triangle Fire of 1911, And the Lessons for Wisconsin and the Nation").

Consider this, in the United States, legislation is currently struggling (plotting, planning, playing) with the below facts:

THIS IS WHAT CLASS WAR LOOKS LIKE

"The only good is knowledge, 

and the only evil is ignorance."

Vegetarian Chili

-- 2 TBS. olive oil
-- 2 Spanish onions, chopped
-- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
-- 1 jalapeño pepper, chopped
-- 1 package of extra firm tofu, finely chopped
-- 6 large fresh tomatoes, chopped (Why not canned tomatoes?)
-- 1 can black beans
-- 1 can kidney beans
-- 1 can pinto beans
-- 1 6oz. can tomato paste
-- 2 TBS. garlic powder
-- 1 Tsp. cumin
-- 1 Tsp. paprika
-- 1 Tsp. chili powder
-- 1 cup water
-- 1/4 cup red wine

Heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions, green pepper, jalapeño pepper, and tofu. Cook until the onions and peppers are tender. Add everything else. Bring to soft boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Eat with shredded cheese and corn muffins.