First Day of School!

[Chet]

Well, I'll be handing in my own halfway competent freshman assignment tomorrow.

[fishjim]

Way to go, Chet!

[auto-da-fey]

rock on, Chet, that's good stuff.

[Bernard]

Half down, half to go, Chet!

[Bernard]

So how about Ado Kyrou.

[Good Intentions]

283 assignments to mark.

Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Wooooooo I'm going to poop on you! Occupy lptj yeah!!

[alex]

I just agreed to supervise my first MA thesis starting in February, a student from Greece who wants to come here for a semester in order to write his thesis about music technology. Should be fun! Also, if I'm lucky, that's going to be the only teaching I'll do this academic year.

[elpollodiablo]

That's cool, alex--are you post doc right now? I can't remember.

I'm about 1/3 through what I'm fairly certain will be my first published piece of critical work and my first real piece of independent scholarship. It's been very tough going the past few days, but also incredibly exciting and liberating. It's nice to think I'll have accomplished something in the way of professional development before I leave with my MA, possibly never to return.

[alex]

Not yet, but the idea is that I will be by then. Just a few minor revisions left before I submit the dissertation.

And that is pretty excellent, Miles! I just received my first published piece of work in print this week, and it is a pretty nice feeling to see something tangible like that with your name on it. Good luck with the remaining 2/3!

[elpollodiablo]

Wrote the close reading assignment for Breaking Bad se. 3 today!

[elpollodiablo]

I am so excited for this American lit post-1919 seminar to start I cannot concentrate on anything else.

[Chet]

I have an exam for my American Lit to 1900 course on the 24th. I haven't sat an exam in 10 years. What is an exam even? ugh.

[hannah]

I am so excited for this American lit post-1919 seminar to start I cannot concentrate on anything else.

whatcha readin'?

[Ashley]

my type prof has a heavy accent and says things like

"the squinted eye is something courageous, and able to spot something that is not well" (on typesetting/kerning)

I think I'm going to like this class.

[JamesSchneider]

Ugh. I want to go to there.

[elpollodiablo]

I am so excited for this American lit post-1919 seminar to start I cannot concentrate on anything else.

whatcha readin'?

This class is going to be the absolute shit. It's taught by the one guy on faculty I really wanted to work with (who turns out to be something of a distant jerk, but, hey, whatever) and his classroom presence is totally amazing. The actual title of the seminar is "Fictions of the National Security State." Coover, DeLillo, Didion, Doctorow, Kushner, O'Brien, Atwood, Zizek, Agamben, etc. Lots of films on the syllabus, too. D and I watched the Frankenheimer Manchurian Candidate the other night,a nd other films include The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Syriana and The Siege (lol). The first day of class was him breaking down the national budget and close reading National Security memos and talking about the paranoia of the Cold War. It is, you might say, custom-made to interest me. Also it'll be cool to read Angels in America in a classroom setting for the first time.

Incidentally all of this reading about shadow gov'ts and whatnot caused me to fire up the first season of the X-Files last night. I hadn't seen the pilot since I was like 13!

[JamesSchneider]

That class sounds baller, and I actually watched that pilot less than a month ago. It's crazy how together that show was from the jump, once you get over their baby fat.

[elpollodiablo]

And Duchovny's terrible line readings.

[Greg Nog]

Holy shit that class sounds choice

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

Also it'll be cool to read Angels in America in a classroom setting for the first time.

i attended a class where this was done (think it was gender and sexuality in lit). totally ruled

[Thermofusion]

Yup, nice-sounding class. Man, I snuck in to see The Siege as a teenager and thought it was ridiculous even back then, and I was probably stoned at the time. Also, you oughta toss Three Days of the Condor onto their plate.

[G.C.R]

Also it'll be cool to read Angels in America in a classroom setting for the first time.

i attended a class where this was done (think it was gender and sexuality in lit). totally ruled

Cosigned. I read it in a Theatre course.

[elpollodiablo]

Today in class a group of my students had an argument about whether or not Walter White is an inherently immoral person or is a product of the extreme circumstances to which he's been subjected. One of them even cited Terry Eagleton to counter an argument about Walt's essential character; another observed that Walter is presumably "from a middle class background" and thus doesn't fit society's archetypal model of drug dealer/manufacturer.

[hannah]