Spring semester

Yesterday a colleague and I wandered out for a post-MLA, pre-spring semester tea. In the process, it came to our attention that it actually is kind of springlike. I've been going around in a cardigan. It's sunny and beautiful here, while all of our friends are digging themselves out of snowdrifts. We're at that stage of life when we don't quite know where we'll be next year. But right now? Bay Area, people. It's pretty nice.

"Winter" in Berkeley. (The Japanese quince outside my apartment, photo taken five minutes ago.)

With the new semester about to begin, it feels like a good time to take stock of current projects.

Teaching.

I'm very excited to be teaching an advanced American modernist poetry seminar this semester. Cal students are great, and we'll be reading some of my favorite poetry. Any time I teach texts I really adore, I feel like I'm beating the system. Which I guess I kind of am. I have a somewhat unorthodox exercise planned for the first day of class; I'll report back if I actually do it.

I'm also serving as faculty sponsor for the De-Cal "Video Games as an Artistic Medium," which should be fun.

Conferences.

• I'll be giving a paper on feminist periodization at ACLA in Vancouver. I was kind of suckered into this, but I've brought myself around to the idea that overcommitment is a good thing, and I'm looking forward to going. I've heard good things about the ACLA seminar format, and now's as good a time as any to see it in action.
• Scott Selisker and I are putting together a panel for MLA 12. I'm excited about every aspect of this except the part where I draft the proposal, which I'm supposed to be doing this weekend instead of blogging. Prepare to be blown away. Will there be Roombas? Maybe.
• I really am going to propose that Against Innovation panel for MSA 13. I've had a surprising amount of interest already, considering I haven't actually put out a CFP, but you know. Interested/amused/bewildered parties are still more than welcome to contact me.

Research projects.

• An article on Berssenbrugge, on which I've posted a few times, is close to being sent out.
• Remember when I said I didn't have time to write anything on the relationship between children and animals? I'm going to.
• An article on Stein, in progress.
• Possibly, text-mining, the responsible version (not the epistemic candy version.)
• My book. I can't really summarize what's happening with the book, but let's provisionally say that the Williams chapter is leading inevitably to Olson and thence to contemporary notions of "experiment."

Arcade.

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It probably says something about academia that I find the beginning-of-semester onslaught as familiar and comforting as a fuzzy blanket, but I'm just going to roll with it. Happy spring semester, everyone!