May 13-14, 2023: Fall Mini-Previews

[Asanother challenging but rewarding semester comes to a close, I wanted toreflect on a handful of moments that particularly surprised me (in good ways).Leading up to these previews of some of what’s next!]

On threeof the many things I’m looking forward to in Fall 2023 (after, y’know, a verynice summer!).

1)     Returning to EthnicAmerican Lit: As I wrote about in that hyperlinked article, my reinventionof Fitchburg State’s Ethnic American Lit course was one of the first momentswhen I really made teaching at FSU my own. I got to teach that course everycouple years thereafter, and it was always a favorite, for all the reasonshighlighted in that article and beyond. I’ve gladly passed that baton to othergreat colleagues for the last few years, but this Fall I get to teach a sectionof Ethnic American Lit, and I couldn’t be more excited to return to thisfavorite 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 getto teach it, but the most recent (Fall2021) 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 aboutit and all things education in the 21st century. We’ll see if we canmake that work again in Fall 2023, but no matter what we’ll be reading Gannon’sbook once more, and I know it’ll speak to this moment and group of studentsdistinctly yet just as potently as it did that last one.

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

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

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