We all know people who are masters of the fauxpology–the “I’m sorry you feel that way” version of apologizing. But I have recently been thinking a lot about what makes a really good apology. And in the process, I have come up with a short list of liberating skills that I am working on, all of which are connected to making the work load of being a department chair a little less emotionally daunting. First: apologizing genuinely, and with a…
My very smart academic friend, Sam Cohen, recently wrote at length about the difficulties of planning a course based on a particular historical moment in terms of the philosophical problems of making fiction stand for history. At least, that’s how I’m choosing to paraphrase a key point implicit in his great discussion of three things he wishes someone had told him a long time ago when he first started studying literature. In lieu of filling his comments section with a…
I want my students to be brilliant. I want them to make observations I haven’t thought of, and write sentences that make me smile just because they are so articulate, and draw connections that illuminate literary history. And in between those flashes of brilliance, I want them to be competent. And in the lulls between competence, I want them to be hard-working and recognize that there is always room for improvement. And when they are too busy to be hard-working…
