May 12, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: Major American Authors of the 20th Century

[About halfwaythrough the Spring 2025 semester, . While that was of course the semester’s most defining moment,it also allowed me to reflect for the remaining weeks on my own teaching inrelationship to one of the most dedicated and talented teachers I’ve everknown. So for this semester reflections series, I want to highlight one momentfrom each class where I’d say I particularly felt my Dad’s presence.]

We lost myDad on a Sunday morning; on Monday morning, I taught two American Literaturecourses over Google Meet. I hope that doesn’t seem insensitive or unfeeling; Iassure you it was quite the opposite, not least because I was teaching at myDad’s desk in his study, with his books and papers and so much else of hisamazing career and life around me. In Major American we were beginning our secondweek with Langston Hughes, and discussing in particular his stunning book-lengthpoem/collection “Montage of aDream Deferred” (1951). At the heart of that collection, in its literalcenter but also I would argue its philosophical core, is “Themefor English B,” one of Hughes’s most explicitly autobiographical poems anda text focused on an English classroom and assignment. As we talked about “Theme”during that class, and especially as I reflected for a bit on the limits andthe possibilities of teaching and writing alike before we move to another focaltext, I certainly felt like my Dad, a lifelong writer and teacher and criticaloptimist about all things literary, was there in the conversation with us.

Next reflectiontomorrow,

Ben

PS. Springsemester reflections you’d share?