30 August 2021 Dear Everyone: Just a brief message with which to welcome you to this first full week of the new year! I hope you’re finding ways to get your footing in this semester; at least for me, it takes a bit to get into the rhythms of the year, and maybe moreso these… Read More

23 August 2021 Dear Everyone: My first message of this academic year! This summer melted away all too quickly for my liking, and oh, I am so sorry I’m not writing to announce our first big in-person event. As for many of you, I’m picking my way through the seemingly ever-shifting grounds of how to… Read More

10 May 2021 Dear Everyone: It was lovely to see so many of you on Friday for our end of year events — the open exec meeting, prizes & awards announcements, and celebration of those who are finishing their degrees this year.  Despite technical issues aplenty in that last chunk — issues which, as several… Read More

3 May 2021 Dear Everyone: Last Friday was a full day of program business! Faculty Membership and Executive Committees met, and we hosted Professor Missy Watson for a lecture in the afternoon, and this, in between all the other things I know you were all doing for classes and exams and dissertations and all —… Read More

26 April 2021 Dear Everyone: The tulips are in full bloom in my yard — spectacular primary colors thrown against the new greens of spring make me not mind so much that every allergen seems intent on making me sneeze — particularly unpleasant in a mask, lol!  (Very, very small price to pay for the… Read More

19 April 2021 Dear Everyone: I’ve mostly stopped asking people how they’re doing because it’s almost unanswerable, at least in the course of any reasonable length conversation. But, in trying to compose this note to you, I find myself wondering anew and wanting to ask each and all, how are you doing? In this past… Read More

12 April 2021 Dear Everyone:   If you were able to attend Professor Todd Craig’s super generous and engaging lecture on Friday, you’ll maybe have been googling the music he referred to – from James Brown’s Funky Drummer to Rapsody’s Eve among so many other citations – as you were listening to how language and… Read More

5 April 2021 Dear Everyone: We’ve made it to the second half of the semester! Brava to all of us for chugging along yet and still! I hope those who were able to take a break actually did last week, at least from the academic part of your lives – so many do multiple things,… Read More

22 March 2021 Dear Everyone: So much has happened in a week, including the start of spring with sunny and warm days, program conversations and committee work on faculty appointments and curriculum revision, continuing work on admissions and all the seminars meeting and such, and, on the personal front, my first professional haircut in more… Read More

15 March 2021 Dear Everyone: There was so much going on in the program on Friday! It was quite strange, really, to have such a distinctive sense of place — the program as a distinctive space — despite the virtually mediated nature of our gatherings.  Strange, yes, but quite great, as it was a reminder… Read More