I’m teaching two sections of plebe — freshman — literature in the spring, and I’m looking forward to it as something that I haven’t done in a while; something that might refresh the ways I teach other courses. The freshman literature course here takes various and changing forms, but right now it’s a largely genre-driven introduction to American literature, and I’m happy to work with the broad opportunities such a perspective permits.
What’s nice about teaching here is that prominent folks — to me, the most remarkable example being Noam Chomsky — are sometimes curious about us, and accept invitations to speak with the cadets. Had I my own department to run, I’d love to see the boundaries pushed a bit further — to see, for example, how students might respond to speakers like Hakim Bey or Eve Ensler or Mark Z. Danielewski.
What about you, reader? Say you’re teaching an intro to literature course, and you have a scant budget. Maybe you can bring in one or two nearby writers — authors of contemporary poetry or fiction or creative nonfiction — who would enjoy talking to your students. Who would you ask to visit?
Janine Debaise would make for an interesting evening. So would Denise Duhamel, but I’m not sure where she’s based these days. (Is she still in South Florida, or did she move back up east?)
Well, I don’t know how it work on the “scant budget,” but I would have Joseph Bruchac come. He does Abenaki storytelling, plays flute and drum, and talks about his writing (which is amazing and wonderful). If you haven’t read his children’s and young adult books, you should check out his memoir Bowman’s Store. Everyone I know who has heard him speak just raves about it.
I was lucky enough to take a poetry seminar (reading and writing) with Denise Duhamel. I’m no poet, but she was a wonderful teacher.
Bruchac sounds fascinating, but — wow! — $2000 a day is kinda steep.
My friend Karren Alenier would be interesting, but she’s local to DC, not NY, though her arm could be twisted gently, methinks. She is a local poet who wrote a libretto to an opera on Gertrude Stein–it was produced in New York, now that I think about it. Anyhow, go to my blog and look at the entries on the left column–you’ll find her blogs there.
Yeah, it is a lot. But, if you ever have a chance to hear him, you should. I know that he speaks at conferences on occassion.
Believe it or not, in Spokane we can play up the local angle and do pretty well, if they’ll come and we have the money. For fiction, there’s Sherman Alexie. I’ve never seen him, but I hear he gives a great talk. He lives in Seattle now, but he comes over once in awhile. For nonfiction, we have Tim Egan as a native son. He’s doing a lot of great work even before his National Book Award. For something more lowbrow, there’s Jess Egan. Ursula Hegi used to teach a few miles down the road, but now that she’s hit the big time, I don’t think she’s around much. If I could get my dream come true, it would be Roddy Doyle.
I would have to think your region, Mike, would have a lot to offer beyond the big names. Top flight names are great, but so few of us will reach that rank that sometimes it’s good to bring in the more middling successes so students can see that they don’t have to be great to make a life of it, to aspire to make a life of it, to be great in their own sphere. Now that my brain is running, the names are coming: Azir Nafisi of Reading Lolita in Tehran, the author of The God of Small Things (forget her name right now). Boy, talk about a kid in a candy shop. I’ll throw in Steven Pinker for the heck of it. Now, the money angle . . .
Mike??? Are you there??? Merry Christmas!
sherman’s okay. some of best experiences with writers were with hubert selby jr and dorth allison. though i have never been able to sit through and read allison’s work her reading was great and she was fun to lunch with.
hubert would be great because as he told me he joined the navy at like fourteen years old during world war 2. when he came back to america he was told he had like two weeks to live and so he started writing and well when i last saw him he was 72 yr.s old. i’ve been out and about and i’m not sure he’s still alive but if he is he’d be fun and interesting. and he has a strong voice.
if i could grab somebody i’d think about a european, especially one who has a bit of a hatred for american diplomacy. or i’d grab a good south american writer. somebody to who’d force learning, understanding and appreciation for other cultures. i can’t tell you how many officiers i ran into who were ignorant of real writing and had obnoxious closeminded ideas about writers. they were american to a fault. maybe you could get o’brien to come.
chuck p.’d surely be an interesting voice to hear.
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon reading Stephanie Allen’s short stories–she’s good. Right now she’s a lecturer at UMCP, and is going to be speaking to our students on Feb. 6. Her stories reflect the African-American experience in the New York-Connecticut area and always end with a puzzle–or a push to reread them. I’ll let you know how it goes.