8 November 2021 Dear Everyone: It was so great to see so many faces gathered for the spring course preview on Friday. Many thanks to all  for introducing us to your classes. It is just plain happy-making to hear the range of work and thinking organizing the courses offered next semester, which will undoubtedly inspire… Read More


1 November 2021 Dear Everyone: With apologies for those who closed out the US Latinx seminar on Friday because this will be repetitive, but this delights me so much, I want to share with all: did you know that bats scream incredibly loudly — like, at rock concert decibels loudly — but because they do… Read More


25 October 2021 Dear Everyone: Those who joined us for the conversation on Friday between Karla Cornejo Villavicencio and Adrian Izquierdo, introduced so beautifully by Mary McGlynn, know that it was all the things we want out of such an event: richly thought, incredibly frank, and touching on such vital matters as how we know… Read More


18 October 2021 Dear Everyone: How are you doing? We’ve about hit the mid-point of the semester, and I’m wondering if you’re wondering how it will be possible to get everything that needs doing done, which is the strong sense that overtakes me at just about this point in every term. I once attended a… Read More


nothing special about the 58th 12 October 2021 Dear Everyone: As some of you know already, I’ve been working in a kind of triage mode this past week — and will be for a bit longer yet — as I’m in the midst of attending to some family matters; I’m so sorry to have missed… Read More


4 October 2021 Dear Everyone: I know we’re conducting committee meetings and workshops and seminars and lectures in zoom rooms, but still it feels to me like the program is abuzz with activity some days, as if it were all being staged in person in 4406! Maybe I’ve become too integrated into zoom world (ack),… Read More


27 September 2021 Dear Everyone:   A huge note of appreciation with which to open this message, to Siraj Ahmed for producing a fantastic Open House on Friday, and Alessandra Occhiolini, Zoë Hu, Mitchell Wilson, Nancy Silverman, Amy Wan, and Duncan Faherty for making it fantastic! Thoughtful, generous, specific, deliberately designed to be helpful in… Read More


20 September 2021 Dear Everyone: This week is Chuseok, the Korean holiday to give thanks for bountiful harvest and gather hope for the year to come. Color and food (and colorful food) shared with beloveds, it’s a favorite holiday of mine. I will think distinctly and deliberately of you all with gratitude and hope in celebrating this… Read More


13 September 2021 Dear Everyone: It was great to be with so many of you on Friday — during the various meetings held earlier in the day, and through the Friday Forum. Thank you to everyone showing up to do the work in all the different forms! Especial thanks to Joan Richardson, Mario DiGangi, Siraj… Read More


7 September 2020 Dear Everyone: Those of you who joined us for Friday’s Critical Karaoke Greatest Hits were treated to a slate of immensely creative and joyfully fun eruptions of brilliance — exactly the thing to launch the year and more immediately the long, last weekend of summer. Huge thanks to Will Arguelles and Christian… Read More