Academic Life: Spring 2019

I don't think I did this update in the Fall! In any event, here's this semester in the life of a full professor at a regional comprehensive college.

Teaching:

• I have two classes this semester, as I have a course release for an administrative assignment (see "service," below).  I don't have new preps this semester, although I'll make up for that next year.  This time around, it's Introduction to Literary Analysis, which is in the Hamlet rotation for the second half of the semester (Hamlet, Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Bailey's The Astrologer, some Victorian retellings for children, and Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well) and Women and British Short Fiction, a lower-division course that fulfills a number of gen ed requirements and thus isn't all English majors.  The literary analysis course is all poetry, all the time for the first half of the semester.

Service:

• I'm still Associate Chair.
• I'm also on the Curriculum Committee, which this semester means wrangling people for assessment.
• We have Periodic Program Review, which is ongoing and won't wrap until near the end of the semester.
• Over the break, I chaired a search committee for an administrative position.  
• There is usually an honors and awards committee assignment that will happen somewhere down the line.
• Profession-wise, I'm now a book review editor for a small online journal (incidentally, let me remind people that if you're interested in reviewing for us, please drop me a line).  The first set of reviews should arrive at the end of next month, so I'll need to put my copyediting hat on.

Professional:

• I've been working for a few months on a book proposal, which is now almost completely drafted.  
• I have...four? articles coming out this year, and should see proofs on one and possibly two of them within the next couple of months.  (One of these articles has been gestating for something close to sixteen years, so I'm glad it's finally out the door!)
• I have three relatively short pieces I need to write: the longest, for a Cambridge Companion, is due in June, plus a 2000-word encylopedia entry in September and a book review sometime this summer.  I've also got a couple of ideas for pieces related to the book that isn't the one I was asked to propose.