[Since I’ve been
on sabbatical this Fall, in place of my usual semester recaps series I’ll be
recapping some of the many
book talks I’ve gotten to deliver over the last few months. Leading up to a
special weekend post on what’s next for We the People!]
On three awesome
audience cohorts who together made the inaugural Temple Graduate English
Program Distinguished Alumni Lecture an inspiring experience for the
lecturer!
1)
Faculty: My opportunity to give the lecture was
due directly to Miles
Orvell, my dissertation chair and one of the AmericanStudiers whose career
(in every sense) has been a
model for my own. Miles also asked one of the best questions I’ve gotten at
any book talk thus far, pushing me to consider what shared vision of America
the inclusive definition of the nation could argue for (his own proposed
vision, of a community that embraces diversity and difference as core values,
sounded like a good starting point to me!). But I also got great questions and
responses from a number of other Temple English faculty, including Katherine
Henry, James
Salazar, and Roland
Williams. Getting the chance to return to this hugely influential space and
community as a colleague to such folks was and will remain a career highlight
for me.
2)
Graduate Students: Another fun experience, if
also a slightly “Once
More to the Lake” dejá vu one, was the chance to meet and chat with English PhD
candidates. I tried to share some of the things I’ve learned about both the
profession and job searches over my 15 years at Fitchburg State, as well as
through my annual participation in the Teaching
at Teaching-Intensive Institutions conference. But as always with the best
communities and conversations, I learned as much (if not indeed more) from
these folks as I was able to share with them, and that continued to be the case
with their questions and responses after the talk. In particular, a grad
student of Latinx heritage asked a probing and important question about how
multi-generational immigrant American communities can not only buy into but
even propagate exclusionary visions of American identity, often targeting newer
immigrant communities as a result.
3)
Undergrads: I knew that faculty members and grad
students would be in attendance, and knew Temple Graduate English well enough
to know that they’d have great and helpful responses. But I wasn’t at all
expecting what turned out to be the largest audience cohort at the talk, Temple
undergrads. Apparently instructors in the university’s awesome Intellectual Heritage
program had announced the talk (and perhaps given extra credit for attendance),
and a number of their students not only came, but shared really insightful
questions and responses. Temple’s undergraduate population is both hugely
diverse and reflective of the city of Philadelphia (as it should be, as the city’s only public university),
and I’m sure that both those elements contributed to their thoughtful
perspectives on exclusion and inclusion. But those communal elements shouldn’t
take anything anyway from these folks’ individual and impressive voices, and
that’s what I love about each and every book talk—the chance to hear them, from
expected and unexpected audiences alike.
Next talk recap
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Ideas for
other places I could talk or write about We
the People? Lemme know,
and thanks!
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