In light of the recent Junot Díaz buzz, a friend asked me on Saturday if I would still teach him. My short answer was yes, and my long answer was if my students want to read him. This post is about why. Studying Díaz In college I knew I wanted to write and hadn't made … Continue reading Will I Still Teach Junot Díaz?
Women’s and Gender Studies
Teaching LEMONADE in 19th-Century American Lit
I'm a 19th-century Americanist and my syllabi for courses taught in early American lit have covered a wide span of women's literature. I've always gone for non-canonical authors and approaches that critique a male-dominated, colonialist canon. But aside from teaching the usual suspects, slave narratives such as Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave … Continue reading Teaching LEMONADE in 19th-Century American Lit
In Your Lecture, Research Together
As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, my 8 a.m. class this semester has been a challenge but by now (two months into the semester) my students have grown accustomed to me throwing questions like "Is feminism a privilege?" at them at 8:10 a.m. They talk in their listening dyad activity for two minutes each, … Continue reading In Your Lecture, Research Together
“A remaking of the mind itself”: Margaret Fuller’s Pedagogy & Mine
Teaching Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century is instructive in its challenge. The text contains numerous references that take students to task with additional research to understand the import of its anecdotes. The text’s oscillation between essentialism and radical gender fluidity can also perplex the student who expects a linear argument one would find … Continue reading “A remaking of the mind itself”: Margaret Fuller’s Pedagogy & Mine
