23 November 2020 Dear Everyone: I’m glad so many of you were able to attend Professor Abdulhamit Arvas’s really super great Friday Forum lecture last week — special thanks to Rob Yates for organizing, and Mario DiGangi and Tanya Pollard for remarks that super generatively extended the lecture – it was a full house! I… Read More

16 November 2020 Dear Everyone: At MoMA right now, there’s an exhibit that focuses on drawing – more specifically, on line. I spent some time there during my foray into NYC, captivated in part by its suggestion to return to foundations, to basics – pen/pencil and paper – and how and why the necessity of… Read More

9 November 2020 Dear Everyone: Perhaps there was some dancing and noise-making in the streets for you this past weekend! I wonder if there wasn’t for you as for me, exhaustion and relief and joy and nervousness and (however cautious) hope and confoundedness all at once. I expect many of you share the immense gratitude… Read More

2 November 2020 Dear Everyone: I hope you were able to attend one of the events we held last Friday – the prospectus workshop and the faculty book publication session – not only because of the super helpful insights and advice offered, but also and equally importantly, because they modeled the kind of intellectual and… Read More

26 October 2020 Dear Everyone: My note this week opens by offering thanks to Amy Wan, Anna Zeemont, Sam O’Hana, Mark McBeth, Sharanya Dutta, Maxine Krenzel, and Mary McGlynn, for being a part of the “Teaching in Emergency” roundtable last Friday, and to Sean Nortz, Nancy Silverman, and Kent Yuen, for their vital organizational and… Read More

19 October 2020 Dear Everyone: This past Friday, thanks to the efforts of a whole lot of people, we held a virtual Open House as our Friday Forum. Going into it, I wondered if anyone would show, because really, who is thinking about applying to grad school in the midst of, well, everything?  It turns… Read More

13 October 2020 Dear Everyone: On Friday, Elizabeth Freeman graced us with a beautiful talk that invited us to move with her through the intimate links between carework and reading.  Her talk resonated strongly not only with the work we do and/or can’t do because of present circumstances, and/or that we must do as strategies… Read More

5 October 2020 Dear Everyone:   I attended a virtual conference for the first time this past weekend, hosted by the University of Virginia English Department’s graduate student association (Talia Schaffer was there, too!), and met and learned from people scattered across the country. I sorely miss in person conferences and was glad and relieved… Read More

28 September 2020 Dear Everyone: The subject line of this message borrows from a piece Aaron Hammes shared with us at our most recent Friday Forum.  In “A Manifesto Concerning Citizenship,” Aaron writes, This world, the one that wealthy people pretend to be citizens of, will end, either in fire or flood.  There will be… Read More

21 September 2020 Dear Everyone: Since the news of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s passing, I’ve had pieces of June Jordan’s “Poem About My Rights” bouncing around in my head — “who the hell set things up like this” and “this poem is not consent I do not consent” especially.  Jordan gives voice to then and still… Read More