Saturday, May 13, 2023

May 13-14, 2023: Fall Mini-Previews

[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). Leading up to these previews of some of what’s next!]

On three of the many things I’m looking forward to in Fall 2023 (after, y’know, a very nice summer!).

1)      Returning to Ethnic American Lit: As I wrote about in that hyperlinked article, my reinvention of Fitchburg State’s Ethnic American Lit course was one of the first moments when I really made teaching at FSU my own. I got to teach that course every couple years thereafter, and it was always a favorite, for all the reasons highlighted in that article and beyond. I’ve gladly passed that baton to other great colleagues for the last few years, but this Fall I get to teach a section of Ethnic American Lit, and I couldn’t be more excited to return to this favorite course that will always feel like it’s got a lot of me in it.

2)      Sharing Gannon in English Studies Capstone: Our Senior Capstone course is another one that I love each and every time I get to teach it, but the most recent (Fall 2021) section was particularly special, as we were reading Kevin Gannon’s Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto (2020) and Kevin was kind enough to Zoom in to chat with us about it and all things education in the 21st century. We’ll see if we can make that work again in Fall 2023, but no matter what we’ll be reading Gannon’s book once more, and I know it’ll speak to this moment and group of students distinctly yet just as potently as it did that last one.

3)      Grad Historical Fiction: The first class I ever got to teach in our English Studies MA program was American Historical Fiction, a course I designed myself for that first Summer 2006 section. I’ve taught it a few more times over the years, but it’s been a long time since the last one and I think I had decided it was in my own history. But the past isn’t dead, it’s not even past, and this Fall I’ll get to teach Hawthorne and Chesnutt, Faulker and Silko, Colson Whitehead and plenty more to another group of our awesome Grad students. So much to look forward to, this Fall as ever!

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Spring semester reflections or Summer/Fall previews you’d share?

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