[As another challenging but rewarding semester comes to a close, I wanted to reflect on a handful of moments that particularly surprised me (in good ways). I’d love to hear some of your Spring reflections in comments!]
This might
come as a surprise, given how frequently
I’ve written about her and her works in this space and beyond, but before
this semester I had never taught an entire Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton novel. I’ve
taught excerpts from The Squatter and the Don
(1885) many times in my Honors
Lit Seminar on the Gilded Age, and had taught the opening of Who
Would Have Thought It? (1872) here and there as well. I really love
Ruiz de Burton (duh), but I can’t lie, I wasn’t entirely sure how the entirety
of her long and chatty late 19th century novels of manners would
teach here in 2023. So I was very pleasantly surprised that the conversation about
Who Would Have Thought It? in my Grad
class on Multi-Ethnic American Literatures not only went well, but was one of
the couple best conversations of the semester (always a competitive category
with our great Grad students). Guess I should teach her whole books more often!
Last
surprise tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Spring semester reflections you’d share?
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