Both My Teaching and I Continue to EvolvE

Well, l'm totally exhausted at the end of this semester. The celebration of commencement at Radio City Music Hall became the stage for continued protest for the majority of students. As if this will end the bloody war. I love my students, love these kids, and have supported (and will continue to) every single one of my students.

So many of the students in my class really pulled it together and wrote excellent, meaningful, sometimes amazing term papers for my 17th Century Prose and Poetry course and my Enlightenment Colloquium. So proud of their work, and it gives me hope. Some said that I gave THEM hope (fake it til you make it?). My students were grateful, even that I didn't cancel the final assignment, since it allowed them to accomplish something they didn't think they could. But what a way to end the year

I am just very very sad.

But I do NOT intend to quit. I love my students and they love me. My Milton and my 17th century Prose and Poetry and my Enlightenment courses fill. They tell me I teach things no one else teaches (Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, which hits home, Browne's Urn Burial, Margaret Fell, Spinoza's Thelogical Political Treatise, and Milton's Areopagitica in several courses) .

The students are inspired by what they read, see how it casts light on the present even as the present inevitably affects how we read earlier texts. I believe my work is more necessary than ever --it is my vocation in every sense , and my teaching continues to evolve.

But I really, really need to get away for a bit and recover.