[Another
Spring semester is upon us, and with it my annual Spring semester previews. This
time I’ll focus on one skill I’m excited to be teaching as part of each of
these courses. Please share what you’ve got going on this semester and year as
well!]
I write
and think a lot about dualities, and more exactly about analyzing them rather
than seeking to reduce them as is our natural human tendency. But I’ll admit
that there’s a particularly complicated one that I struggle with maintaining in
my own work: the duality of nuance and clarity, of trying to approach our
subjects as the multilayered things they are, while at the same time trying to
stay what we have to say about them clearly and compellingly. I think finding a
way to do both of those at once is at the heart of what I do—as a thinker, as a
writer, as a teacher, as a public citizen—and so I’m very excited to make it
the heart of my Graduate Research Methods syllabus as well. For example, we’ll
start by reading both The
Turn of the Screw and the manifold contexts and lenses that inform how
we read it—and our goal will be to keep a sense of just how nuanced this text
is, while still figuring out how to express our own takes on it with clarity. I’m
excited to work with our phenomenal grad students to practice those vital
skills!
Next
preview post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What’s
on your radar?
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