Day 106. A fun invitation from OPB

This is relevant to the project I think! This morning I got a really fun email invitation to write a guest blog post for a new blog project at OpenPress Books, one of my favorite OA publisher. The idea is write something about OA, and for me that means the intersection of OA and OER, how accessible monographs means that I can recommend books to my students that, in the traditional publishing model, would not be accessible: at best we would have the book in the library, in which case one student could access it. But with OA online, that means an unlimited number of students can access the book title.

So, for example, here's the OPB page for Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa: wonderful!

Day 105. Emily Zobel Marshall's Brer Rabbit book!

I've been on a trip to Texas, and one of the best things was reading Emily Zobel Marshall's Brer Rabbit book on the plane: wow!

American Trickster:

Trauma, Tradition and Brer Rabbit

I learned so much that will be really useful going forward. One of the most exciting things is the Beatrix Potter connection: the invention of Peter Rabbit is indebted to the African American folktales published by Harris. Harris did a poor job of crediting his sources, and Beatrix Potter certainly did not indicate her debt to Harris, much less to the African storytellers at the heart of it all. I am really looking forward to exploring Beatrix Potter's rabbit stories based on what I have learned from Emily Zobel Marshall's book!

(from The Tale of Mr. Tod)

Day 104. Another historical visualization

I didn't have time to do any project work today, but I did see this great visualization tool from USAToday of all places:

Day 103. Agendas

So, it looks like I might be taking on a book project; I've got a few weeks to put the proposal together, and it sounds like I would get a go-ahead before the end of the semester. I hesitated at first because it would set this project behind by a year, with my next summer working on a teaching-related project instead of Brer Rabbit. But the more I think about it, the more that seems like a good idea. I see myself shifting from teaching to OER, so taking an opportunity to sum up what I've learned about teaching in these past 20 years.

And I can keep on collecting and indexing stories all the while...!

I did the wonderful Nigerian tortoise story today about why the elephant's eyes are so small: The Elephant and the Tortoise.

Day 102. Educational Malpractice...

I didn't have time to work on the project directly today (although I did share a Brer Rabbit story as Story of the Day!), but I keep seeing great stuff from the 1619Project, including this item that really got my attention:

Why slavery is mistaught — and worse — in American schools

by Nikita Stewart

Day 101. Emily Zobel Marshall on Brer Rabbit

Finally! Emily Zobel Marshall's book finally showed up as a Kindle; it had been listed as pre-order even though I knew the book was out, and something made me pop over and take a look, and there it was. It's ridiculously expensive ($35 for the Kindle, argh!), but I thought her Anansi book was wonderful, so of course I knew I had to read this one. Maybe I can manage to read this on my trip to Austin this weekend; I'm pretty tense about this visit, so having this book will be a great way to distract myself!

Day 100. Made it so far!

It seems very appropriate to have Day 100 of the project coming exactly the day before classes start! So, I don't have a lot to write today, except to say: YAY, I made it!

And, thanks to a Nigerian folktale I was working on this morning, I did manage to stump Google Socratic by asking about bush cats! Details: Zuboff, Chapter 4: How Google Got Away With It.

And the story was such a great find, too; I recognized it right away as being parallel to the Anansi story about a chain of victims that I was working on a year ago and, kudos to Martha Beckwith: she had the Nigerian citation in her notes to the Anansi story: Brer Anansi Borrows Money.

And here's a bush cat:

(photo by Danny Idelevich)