I have a divided academic brain. Not like Sydney, who wants to study 30 different fields at once, but I do have more than one literary love. When I start working on dissertation stuff this summer and fall, I am going to be focusing on British Modernism (i.e., British literature from 1890-1950). But I also really love Southern fiction: Faulkner, Steinbeck, you name it. Mom got me started on it and I’ve been on that Southern kick ever since, even though I thought I might burn out by writing my undergrad thesis on Faulkner. My poor roommates – they heard more about that man than anyone could possibly want to hear! Very sorry, Lisa and Sarah!
It’s an area that I don’t see taught very often in the Northern schools I’ve attended, but it’s one I want to continue pursuing. So I thought I would pitch a Southern literature class to my department, and they seemed to find this acceptable. I just learned a couple of days ago that my proposal for “Women of the South” was picked up. I’m really excited! What a great excuse to read in an area that I don’t often get to explore!
Speaking of reading (a constant fixture in our house), I saved up my pennies and bought 8 Virginia Woolf books that just arrived in the mail today. Of course, I now want to sit down and start reading, but I think I’ll have to hold them out as a carrot for getting me through my term papers!
Off to enjoy my reading giddiness.
Erin
Alan Schmierer
Congrats on getting the course accepted! I’m jealous that you get to teach your own class and even develop the topic/content. I won’t have such freedom for quite some time…
It’s their concession to unruly humanities students. Anytime we’re upset about something we start muttering about patriarchy and the compromise of our subjectivity, so I think they’re sick enough of that to give us our own courses. Then, when our students complain about reading weird stuff, we get to deal with it!
Or, if you want a different cynical reading, the job market is terrible, and unlike you we don’t get research results to fall back on, so they’re trying to beef up our c. v. by making our teaching look good.
Or maybe they just want to make us happy as we push through a busy semester!
Erin