This week in lit. theory, we’re reading about existentialism, authenticity, and absurdity. (I repeat, this is much too much to cover in a week, but this is the reality of a survey class, so anyway…at least we come back to de Beauvoir in a few weeks, when we hit feminist theory.) I think they’ll have […]
This Week in Lit. Theory Read More »
I’m teaching the Surrealists this week (along with High Modernism), and I am tempted to record a video lecture, chop it up into random bits, reassemble it, and then invite my students to make whatever sense out of it they’d like. I am not actually going to do that, but it would be funny. My
A Collaborative Poem Read More »
I feel like all my teaching / employee management these days is about both: • providing plenty of structure and clear instructions • extending grace for missed work, etc. Essential in a pandemic. Pretty important the rest of the time too.
Pandemic Essentials Read More »
I’m afraid I may have to rethink my expectations for fall semester. I’d been expecting that at least at the university, we’d be in-person by then, with all professors and TAs vaccinated, and a good percentage of the student body too, and R dropping rapidly, hopefully below 1 by then, getting close to herd immunity
Rethinking My Expectations for Fall Semester Read More »
Teaching Freud today, “Mourning and Melancholia.” I haven’t taught Freud before, and I have to say, it’s a little bit of a tightrope between: a) He has a *lot* of useful things to say that have greatly influenced the study of psychology and how humans think about themselves (and about literature), and b) He had
Mourning and Melancholia Read More »
This is apparently the week when 9/10ths of my students suddenly fall apart and stop handing things in. I am chasing after them in e-mails and Slack messages, begging them to give me something that I can grade, please, because even a C- is better than a 0 for your GPA, I promise you. (And
That feeling when you read a story by one of your advanced fiction students and it is so unnerving that you have to force yourself to finish reading it and afterwards, you want to take a warm bath and maybe knit for a few hours to recover. I mean, she did a really good job
Unnerving and Effective Read More »
For no good reason, I was having a really hard time convincing myself to get out of bed to go teach this morning, but at 9:50 a.m. I finally rolled out of bed, brushed my hair, made myself coffee, took my meds, and was sitting in my office with my Zoom window open at 10
Shoulda Stood in Bed Read More »
I normally try to keep my lit lectures short, in the 5-15 minutes range, because all the research I’ve seen indicates that students mostly stop watching video lectures that go on longer, but I just COULDN’T do: • Marxism • overview of communism / democratic socialism / American ideas about taxes / group coverage of
I Tried My Best, People Read More »
“Why does Karl Marx hate Early Grey?” “Because all proper tea is theft.” ***** I know, groan. I couldn’t resist! I’m prepping this week’s lit theory lecture / reading, on Marxist thought…
