fall semester, 2015

is it only Tuesday?

the rhythms of rushing about from class to class to meeting to office feel all huge and different still. I'll get used to them. in a few weeks this will be all-encompassing and almost as unthinking as skin.

you'd think by this point I'd have fewer and fewer classes to list. I got through prelims, so coursework should be almost over too. it is. almost. one more linguistics requirement next semester, I think, and I'll be all done. then what rhythms will carve themselves into my brain when next fall arrives?

let's not worry about that. here are this year's brain-stretching periods: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. two seminars and a practicum. (there's also a research gig and an hourly assistant position, but those don't quite fit my pattern of semesterly documentation so well.)

Posthumanism, with Dr. Thomas Rickert
I don't need this class for anything really. but I couldn't not take it. critiquing all the definitions of "human"? yeah. decentering our models of the universe and thinking beyond all the lines between this and that, body and mind, organic and technological, wildness and artifice? yeah. I'm going to love this crazy class.

Computers in Language and Rhetoric with Dr. Samantha Blackmon
not sure what to think about this one yet. it's tying together pedagogy and technology and writing... our first readings are going to be interesting old articles (from 1986!) about the first word processing programs ever. should be fun.

Professional Writing Practicum, with Dr. Michael Salvo
my undergraduate professional writing classes changed my life, I think it's safe to say. learning how to teach those sorts of things--learning how to push students to create specific, relevant, rock-solid ideas-in-action writing--is going to be great. it's about time I took up this opportunity.

English 420, Business Writing, with... me.
new subject to teach! new students who are not freshmen! our first day went pretty well. it's an early morning class, and even so only one kid came in a tiny bit late.