I've put selected essays online in hopes that someone might find them interesting "just because" (I know I do), but also so they will be indexed by search engines and might be useful to another student doing their own research. In essays where I've included references, those references will be indexed by Google scholar, so those authors will receive greater recognition, and more people can benefit from their work.
- Community Process Observation and Critique: Public Hearing on County Parks Management Plan Regarding Clam and Moonstone Beaches. Critique of public process at Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting, 13 September 2005. For Natural Resources Conflict Resolution, Instr. Carolyn Frazee, Humboldt State University.
- Inscape/Landscape Reading blog. Inscape: the set of attitudes, beliefs, and experiences that contribute to our way of seeing the natural world (landscape, ocean, atmosphere). Inscape/Landscape is a terrific discussion based class taught by Jeff Dunk where we discuss several books. I put my reading journal online as a blog.
- Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayyati. Research project on Iraqi poet includes a short biography, fairly complete bibliography, and a "webliography" of other sites about Al-Bayyati. Literature of North African and the Middle East, Professor Michael Eldridge, Humboldt State University, Spring 2005.
What is unique about this "poetry project" is that my group posted it on Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It was cool to feel like I was a part of making a useful resource, and also experience some of the Wikipedia advantages as an author (I've already used it plenty of times to look up information). Soon after we put up the article on Al-Bayyati, someone (or something) went through our article and linked some of our text to other pages and also categorized our page. Some visitors have even corrected spelling mistakes (and then we got their "A"). I wrote historical and interpretive notes for Al-Bayyati's poem "The Dragon" and put than on Wikipedia as well. Wikipedia, or more generally, hypertext, was the perfect tool for this project, because it allowed me to make references to historical facts and other articles with great economy, instead of quoting and rehashing allot of other information. If you don't now much about Wikipedia, I recommend reading the Wired Magazine article "The Book Stops Here" from March 2005.
[Founders hall, University Center, Fulkerson Hall, and athletic fields at Humboldt State University.]
- Einstein's Daughter: Stronger Together. Essay on "Einstein's Daughter," short story by Claudia Smith Brinson. Practical Criticism, Professor Barry Dalsant, Humboldt State University, Fall 2004.
- On "anyone lived in a pretty how town". New critical essay on "anyone lived in a pretty how town," poem by e.e. cumings. Practical Criticism, Professor Barry Dalsant, Humboldt State University, Fall 2004.
- On "Spring and All:" Two Sides to the Story. Reader response essay on Spring and All, poem by William Carlos Williams. Practical Criticism, Professor Barry Dalsant, Humboldt State University, Fall 2004. [Here's what some other people have said about "Spring and All."]
I've since retracted my idea about there being "a dark side of Spring." I think Williams was trying to be a bit more subtle than I gave him credit for. The scene is cold, harsh, and bare, but according to "Spring and All" this is the setting of the greatest opportunity for beginnings and new life.
- Strangers in our County. Attempt to write an auto-ethnography about being a left-of-center American. Introduction to English Major, Professor David Stacey, Humboldt State University, Spring 2004.
[Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: To the left, you see the set of dormitories we called the "toasters", and to the right, the Bartlesman Campus Center.]
- The Development of Monolatry in the Bible. Working Theologies, Professors Nancy Leonard and Bruce Chilton (widely published author/scholar), Bard College, Spring 2003.
- Who Shapes Things? Essay on will and fate in Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. Professor Elizabeth Frank (pulitzer-prize winning biographer), Bard College, Fall 2002.
- Transport. Research project on Transportation and Communication — how the two are really the same thing, how and why we develop transport/communications technologies, and how they change us, our communities, and the world. I wrote this in my junior year of high school, so it has a bit more of an amateur style in parts than my later writing, but I still think the ideas I explored were extremely compelling, and some of the works cited are highly worthwhile. In particular check out the Wired article on Rem Koolhaas by Gary Wolf, "Exploring the Unmaterial World." Northcoast Preparatory and Performing Arts Academy, Fall 2000.