My New Book!

My New Book!
My New Book!

Monday, September 1, 2025

September 1, 2025: Fall Semester Previews: Honors Lit

[This week, I start my 21st year at Fitchburg State! So as usual, I’ll offer some previews of the semester ahead, this time focusing on individual moments I’m looking forward to in each class. Leading up to a weekend update on my plans for season 2 of my podcast!]

It’s been a few years since I had the chance to teach my Honors Literature Seminar on America in the Gilded Age, so I’m very excited for every moment in this longstanding favorite course offered for our phenomenal community of Honors Program students (many of whom I taught in my Spring 2025 Honors First-Year Writing section). But since I’m drafting this series in mid-June, with the Los Angeles protests unfolding as I write, I’m particularly looking forward to beginning the class with our first long text, Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona. Besides being a multilayered historical novel that teaches really well, Jackson’s novel reminds us that Southern California (like all of America, but in particularly striking ways) has always been incredibly diverse, and that those who want to “return” to a homogeneous white America are quite simply fantasists.

Next semester preview tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do y’all have coming up?

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