May 15, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: Graduate Research Methods

[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.]

Thissemester featured myfirst-ever section of our Graduate Research Methods course, but I did modelthat new syllabus on two courses I’ve taught a number of times: Introto Literary Theory (another Grad class) and Approachesto English Studies (an undergrad one). Which meant we talked here and thereabout the approach/theory known as psychoanalytical, an approach that definedmy Dad’s early career (his dissertation/firstbook was a psychoanalytical reading of James Fenimore Cooper) and thatcontinued to inform his later interests in topicslike authorship. I’ll admit to being far less of a devotee of this approachthan my Dad, but I’ll also admit that when we returned fully to this class’sconversations after his passing, I made sure to think through when and howpsychoanalytical analysis could help, beyond what I would have been likely todo in another semester. For example, I think Dad’s ideas about the anxieties ofauthorship and audience have a lot to tell us about Langston Hughes, the poeton whom our middle unit in this course focused. I promise to keep an open mindabout this theoretical approach going forward, Dad.

Last reflectiontomorrow,

Ben

PS. Springsemester reflections you’d share?