[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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